VS2013 TFS "Key not valid for use in specified state" error

My VS 2013 would not connect to any internal or VSO TFS instances today. I also could not remove servers (??). I kept getting "Key not valid for use in specified state", not matter what I tried. This was particularly frustrating because VS 2012 on the same machine was connecting to everything just fine!

I exited VS and deleted %APPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 and %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Team Foundation\5.0 but that did not fix it. After some digging I found someone on Connect had reported same and for them deleting the 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VSCommon\12.0\ClientServices\TokenStorage' folder got it working again. Sure enough, it fixed me too.

HTH if you find yourself in the same state someday.

--Trev

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 05, 2014
  Thanks for sharing this, saved me a day :)

• Anonymous
  February 17, 2014
  Thanks you. :)

• Anonymous
  February 22, 2014
  Thanks, solved this issue for me. After you delete the key from regedit, (even without closing and opening VS instance) when you try to connect to tfs you are required to provide credentials and works fine.

• Anonymous
  March 08, 2014
  Thx a lot... But do you have any explanation?

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2014
  Sweet.

• Anonymous
  March 22, 2014
  Same, sold what was 4 hours of messing with settings in about 10 seconds! :-)

• Anonymous
  March 26, 2014
  That fixed it up for us. Thanks.

• Anonymous
  April 07, 2014
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  April 08, 2014
  Thanks, this really saved my time.

• Anonymous
  April 10, 2014
  Gratz!

• Anonymous
  May 01, 2014
  Worked like a charm!  Thanks!

• Anonymous
  May 04, 2014
  Thanks! It works!!

• Anonymous
  May 11, 2014
  Thank you ! Great post !

• Anonymous
  May 12, 2014
  It works. Thanks

• Anonymous
  June 02, 2014
  Thanks!

• Anonymous
  June 08, 2014
  I never post, but this just worked!

• Anonymous
  June 12, 2014
  Worked great! Thanks so much!

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2014
  it worked. Thanks

• Anonymous
  July 03, 2014
  Yup - worked for me too!

• Anonymous
  September 16, 2014
  Thanks !!!

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2014
  Thank you! Saved me a re-install.

• Anonymous
  October 09, 2014
  It's total saved my time.. awesome.. Thanks a lot....

• Anonymous
  October 21, 2014
  Nice !

• Anonymous
  November 05, 2014
  Thanks

• Anonymous
  November 24, 2014
  Thanks, it works !

• Anonymous
  December 17, 2014
  Working for me too

• Anonymous
  January 08, 2015
  Two repairs then remove the folder in registry.

• Anonymous
  January 15, 2015
  thank you for sharing the info.

• Anonymous
  February 02, 2015
  Thanks for this useful tip. My VS suddenly showed up this error message and i have no clue what to do until i found this post. thanks again for taking your time and posting it here.

• Anonymous
  March 05, 2015
  It worked for me as well! Thanks :)

• Anonymous
  April 07, 2015
  Thanks

• Anonymous
  May 12, 2015
  thx dude

• Anonymous
  June 14, 2015
  Thanks for saving my day.

• Anonymous
  June 28, 2015
  Excellenet! It works for me. Thanks

• Anonymous
  July 31, 2015
  Thank you! It worked...Looks like it happened when changed the network password

• Anonymous
  November 01, 2015
  thank you. it fixed the issue :)

• Anonymous
  November 18, 2015
  Worked! Thanks

• Anonymous
  March 02, 2016
  Hey It worked !!:-)Thanks

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2016
  thanks. tôi cài lại máy và không thể nào connect tới TFS. may quá đọc cái này mới biết cách vào lại.

• Anonymous
  August 13, 2016
  Thanks Trveor

• Anonymous
  September 02, 2016
  Worked like a charm!Thanks a lot!

• Anonymous
  September 20, 2016
  Thanks a lot for sharing this which solved my issue.

• Anonymous
  December 07, 2016
  Thank you ... Was tired since morning solving this error.. Atlast came acrross to this solution.A very big thank you :p

• Anonymous
  December 12, 2016
  thank you bro

• Anonymous
  December 14, 2016
  You're advise is still working two years later! Thank you!

• Anonymous
  July 07, 2017
  Even over three years later this solution is still useful. Thanks for posting it.

• Anonymous
  November 02, 2017
  thanks :)VS2013 started crashing with a argumentnullexception for me. Had to delete pretty much everything in appdata to get VS2013 working again, but then I got the "key not valid for use in specified state"-error. Deleting the Tokenstorage from registry solved it.

• Anonymous
  January 18, 2019
  Thanks. fixed my problem too.