Edit

Share via

Troubleshoot error messages for single sign-on (SSO)

  • Article

This article provides some guidance about how to troubleshoot problems with single sign-on (SSO) in Office Add-ins, and how to make your SSO-enabled add-in robustly handle special conditions or errors.

Note

The Single Sign-on API is currently supported for Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. For more information about where the Single Sign-on API is currently supported, see IdentityAPI requirement sets. If you're working with an Outlook add-in, be sure to enable Modern Authentication for the Microsoft 365 tenancy. For information about how to do this, see Enable or disable modern authentication for Outlook in Exchange Online.

Debugging tools

We strongly recommend that you use a tool that can intercept and display the HTTP Requests from, and Responses to, your add-in's web service when you are developing. Some of the most popular are:

Causes and handling of errors from getAccessToken

For examples of the error handling described in this section, see:

13000

The getAccessToken API isn't supported by the add-in or the Office version.

  • The version of Office does not support SSO. The required version is Microsoft 365 subscription, in any monthly channel.
  • The add-in manifest is missing the proper WebApplicationInfo section.

Your add-in should respond to this error by falling back to an alternate system of user authentication. For more information, see Requirements and Best Practices.

13001

The user isn't signed into Office. In most scenarios, you should prevent this error from ever being seen by passing the option allowSignInPrompt: true in the AuthOptions parameter.

But there may be exceptions. For example, you want the add-in to open with features that require a logged in user; but only if the user is already logged into Office. If the user isn't logged in, you want the add-in to open with an alternate set of features that do not require that the user is signed in. In this case, logic which runs when the add-in launches calls getAccessToken without allowSignInPrompt: true. Use the 13001 error as the flag to tell the add-in to present the alternate set of features.

Another option is to respond to 13001 by falling back to an alternate system of user authentication. This will sign the user into AAD, but not sign the user into Office.

This error doesn't typically occur in Office on the web. If the user's cookie expires, Office on the web returns error 13006. However, if a user accesses Outlook on the web from Firefox with Enhanced Tracking Protection turned on, they'll encounter error 13001.

13002

The user aborted sign in or consent; for example, by choosing Cancel on the consent dialog.

  • If your add-in provides functions that don't require the user to be signed in (or to have granted consent), then your code should catch this error and allow the add-in to stay running.
  • If the add-in requires a signed-in user who has granted consent, your code should have a sign-in button appear.

13003

User Type not supported. The user isn't signed into Office with a valid Microsoft account or Microsoft 365 Education or work account. This may happen if Office runs with an on-premises domain account, for example. Your code should fall back to an alternate system of user authentication. In Outlook, this error may also occur if modern authentication is disabled for the user's tenant in Exchange Online. For more information, see Requirements and Best Practices.

13004

Invalid Resource. (This error should only be seen in development.) The add-in manifest hasn't been configured correctly. Update the manifest. For more information, see Validate an Office Add-in's manifest. The most common problem is that the <Resource> element (in the <WebApplicationInfo> element) has a domain that does not match the domain of the add-in. Although the protocol part of the Resource value should be "api" not "https"; all other parts of the domain name (including port, if any) should be the same as for the add-in.

13005

Invalid Grant. This usually means that Office has not been pre-authorized to the add-in's web service. For more information, see Create the service application and Register an Office Add-in that uses single sign-on (SSO) with the Microsoft identity platform. This also may happen if the user has not granted your service application permissions to their profile, or has revoked consent. Your code should fall back to an alternate system of user authentication.

Another possible cause, during development, is that your add-in using Internet Explorer, and you are using a self-signed certificate. (To determine which browser or webview is being used by the add-in, see Browsers and webview controls used by Office Add-ins.)

13006

Client Error. This error is only seen in Office on the web. Your code should suggest that the user sign out and then restart the Office browser session.

13007

The Office application was unable to get an access token to the add-in's web service.

13008

The user triggered an operation that calls getAccessToken before a previous call of getAccessToken completed. This error is only seen on Office on the web. Your code should ask the user to repeat the operation after the previous operation has completed.

13010

The user is running the add-in in Office on Microsoft Edge. The user's Microsoft 365 domain, and the login.microsoftonline.com domain, are in a different security zones in the browser settings. This error is only seen on Office on the web. If this error is returned, the user will have already seen an error explaining this and linking to a page about how to change the zone configuration. If your add-in provides functions that don't require the user to be signed in, then your code should catch this error and allow the add-in to stay running.

13012

There are several possible causes.

  • The add-in is running on a platform that does not support the getAccessToken API. For example, it isn't supported on iPad. See also Identity API requirement sets.
  • The Office document was opened from the Files tab of a Teams channel using the Edit in Teams option on the Open dropdown menu. The getAccessToken API isn't supported in this scenario.
  • The forMSGraphAccess option was passed in the call to getAccessToken and the user obtained the add-in from AppSource. In this scenario, the tenant admin has not granted consent to the add-in for the Microsoft Graph scopes (permissions) that it needs. Recalling getAccessToken with the allowConsentPrompt will not solve the problem because Office is allowed to prompt the user for consent to only the AAD profile scope.

Your code should fall back to an alternate system of user authentication.

In development, the add-in is sideloaded in Outlook and the forMSGraphAccess option was passed in the call to getAccessToken.

13013

The getAccessToken was called too many times in a short amount of time, so Office throttled the most recent call. This is usually caused by an infinite loop of calls to the method. There are scenarios when recalling the method is advisable. However, your code should use a counter or flag variable to ensure that the method isn't recalled repeatedly. If the same "retry" code path is running again, the code should fall back to an alternate system of user authentication. For a code example, see how the retryGetAccessToken variable is used in HomeES6.js or ssoAuthES6.js.

50001

This error (which isn't specific to getAccessToken) may indicate that the browser has cached an old copy of the office.js files. When you're developing, clear the browser's cache. Another possibility is that the version of Office isn't recent enough to support SSO. On Windows, the minimum version is Version 1911 (Build 12215.20006). On Mac, it's Version 16.32 (19102902).

In a production add-in, the add-in should respond to this error by falling back to an alternate system of user authentication. For more information, see Requirements and Best Practices.

Errors on the server-side from Azure Active Directory

For samples of the error-handling described in this section, see:

Conditional access / Multifactor authentication errors

In certain configurations of identity in AAD and Microsoft 365, it is possible for some resources that are accessible with Microsoft Graph to require multifactor authentication (MFA), even when the user's Microsoft 365 tenancy does not. When AAD receives a request for a token to the MFA-protected resource, via the on-behalf-of flow, it returns to your add-in's web service a JSON message that contains a claims property. The claims property has information about what further authentication factors are needed.

Your code should test for this claims property. Depending on your add-in's architecture, you may test for it on the client-side, or you may test for it on the server-side and relay it to the client. You need this information in the client because Office handles authentication for SSO add-ins. If you relay it from the server-side, the message to the client can be either an error (such as 500 Server Error or 401 Unauthorized) or in the body of a success response (such as 200 OK). In either case, the (failure or success) callback of your code's client-side AJAX call to your add-in's web API should test for this response.

Regardless of your architecture, if the claims value has been sent from AAD, your code should recall getAccessToken and pass the option authChallenge: CLAIMS-STRING-HERE in the options parameter. When AAD sees this string, it prompts the user for the additional factors and then returns a new access token which will be accepted in the on-behalf-of flow.

If AAD has no record that consent (to the Microsoft Graph resource) was granted to the add-in by the user (or tenant administrator), AAD will send an error message to your web service. Your code must tell the client (in the body of a 403 Forbidden response, for example).

If the add-in needs Microsoft Graph scopes that can only be consented to by an admin, your code should throw an error. If the only scopes that are needed can be consented to by the user, then your code should fall back to an alternate system of user authentication.

Invalid or missing scope (permission) errors

This kind of error should only be seen in development.

Invalid audience error in the access token for Microsoft Graph

Your server-side code should send a 403 Forbidden response to the client which should present a friendly message to the user and possibly also log the error to the console or record it in a log.