Hi,

I an developing an application that is based on the beerhouse.
Because of accessibility issues I've had to modify the registration process.
Instead of using the createuserwizard, I'm manually creating users using a two step wizard control. In the first step I pull in username,pasword,email ect validate and add the submitted fields via the following code -
protectedvoid SignUpButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Wizard1.StepNextButtonStyle.CssClass = "hidden";
if (!Page.IsValid)
{
return;
}
Wizard1.ActiveStepIndex = Wizard1.ActiveStepIndex + 1;
MembershipCreateStatus createStatus;
MembershipUser newUser = Membership.CreateUser(UserNameTextBox.Text, PasswordTextBox.Text, EmailTextBox.Text, QuestionTextBox.Text, AnswerTextBox.Text, true, out createStatus);
switch (createStatus)
{
caseMembershipCreateStatus.Success:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "The user account was successfully created!";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.DuplicateUserName:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There already exists a user with this username.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.DuplicateEmail:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There already exists a user with this email address.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.InvalidEmail:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There email address you provided in invalid.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.InvalidAnswer:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There security answer was invalid.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.InvalidPassword:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "The password you provided is invalid. It must be seven characters long and have at least one non-alphanumeric character.";
break;
default:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There was an unknown error; the user account was NOT created.";
break;
}
Roles.AddUserToRole(newUser.UserName, "Posters");
}

In the second step I then include the userprofile control -
<mb:UserProfileID="UserProfile1"runat="server"/>

The problem arises with the userprofile postback. The following code used is unable to recognise the newly created user -

ProfileCommon profile = this.Profile;
if (this.UserName.Length > 0)
profile = this.Profile.GetProfile(this.UserName);
ddlSubscriptions.SelectedValue = profile.Preferences.Newsletter.ToString();
ect...

The this.Profile is deemed anonymous!

Is this because the controls viewstate is being incorrectly configured? Does the use of the createuzerwizard save the username to the control's viewstate and am I not accounting for this when manually creating users?

Please help.

You guessed it exactly. The CreateUserWizard maintains a reference to the user name of the user it creates through its UserName property. Since you aren't using the CreateUserWizard, you won't have access to that property.

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Thanks for your reply.

In order for the username to persist throughout the wizard steps, do I have to save this information to the wizards control state? If so, I would be greatful if you could provide any pointers to a possible solution?

There are several ways you can go here.

I probably wouldn't bother trying to mess with the ControlState. There are easier state-control mechanisms you could use here, like Session. After the user is created, you could store the UserName in Session, then retrieve it in the next step.

Another way to go would be to log the person in right away after they are created. You would use the Forms Authentication API to set the auth cookie in the create step. Then, on the next step, the response will send the cookie, and the user will be recognized as an authenticated user. This is essentially what the CreateUserWizard does by default (behind the scenes of course).

If you examine the UserProfile control, it is set up to automatically pull the profile of the currently authenticated user, so it should be ready to go then.

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Hi Lee,
You have been a great help, but I now have another problem ?

I decided to follow your advise of using the Forms API to set the cookie after creating the user as seen in the following code -
Wizard1.ActiveStepIndex = Wizard1.ActiveStepIndex + 1;
MembershipCreateStatus createStatus;
MembershipUser newUser = Membership.CreateUser(UserNameTextBox.Text, PasswordTextBox.Text, EmailTextBox.Text, QuestionTextBox.Text, AnswerTextBox.Text, true, out createStatus);
switch (createStatus)
{
caseMembershipCreateStatus.Success:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "The user account was successfully created!";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.DuplicateUserName:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There already exists a user with this username.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.DuplicateEmail:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There already exists a user with this email address.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.InvalidEmail:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There email address you provided in invalid.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.InvalidAnswer:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There security answer was invalid.";
break;
caseMembershipCreateStatus.InvalidPassword:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "The password you provided is invalid. It must be seven characters long and have at least one non-alphanumeric character.";
break;
default:
CreateAccountResults.Text = "There was an unknown error; the user account was NOT created.";
break;
}
if (Membership.ValidateUser(newUser.UserName, PasswordTextBox.Text))
{
bool test = FormsAuthentication.Authenticate(newUser.UserName, PasswordTextBox.Text);
Roles.AddUserToRole(newUser.UserName, "Posters");
if (test) Label2.Text = "<p>User Successfully Authenticated</p>";
else Label2.Text = "<p>User Unsuccessfully Authenticated</p>";
}

The problem I'm having is that when I pass the paramaters - newUser.UserName, PasswordTextBox.Text to the FormsAuthentication.Authenticate() method, I get a false bool return value, thus the authentication fails. This is strange since I use the same values in the Membership.ValidateUser() method, in the if statement above, which returns a true value?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Authenticate is not the correct method to use. Try SetAuthCookie instead.

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That did the trick - thanks again for all your help!