Trying to get a user's userID post authentication in MVC3 using ASP.NET memberships

Question

We need to process something specific when the user logs into our MVC3 web app, so it's wired inside global.asax.cs as follows:

    public void FormsAuthentication_OnAuthenticate(object sender, FormsAuthenticationEventArgs args)
    {
        if (args.Context.Request.LogonUserIdentity != null)
        {
            MembershipUser mu = Membership.GetUser();
            // blah blah ... kick off something special
            // for logged in users here
        }
    }

Right now I'm getting the exception

System.InvalidOperationException: This method can only be called after the authentication event.

at the line args.Context.Request.LogonUserIdentity != null which is in there to avoid tripping over Membership.GetUser(); I suspect the choice of using FormsAuthentication_OnAuthenticate is not an appropriate choice and I'm hunting for the appropriate event and function ( lifetime and events ) without a clear answer in sight.

Am I really off in the wrong direction on this one? What is the best event/function to hook into to process this case? Thanks!

Answer 1

I was running into the same issue. Using the global.asax event Application_AuthorizeRequest instead of FormsAuthentication_OnAuthenticate worked for me.