.Net's Directory Services throws a strange exception

Question

Hi there,

I have a small C# solution used to check users credentials. It works fine for two of my teammates, but on my PC I get an exception.

The relevant code:

PrincipalContext context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);
if (context.ValidateCredentials(System.Environment.UserDomainName + "\\" + usr, pwd))
     return true;
else
     return false;

And the exception is:

DirectoryOperationException, "The server cannot handle directory requests.".

I tried creating context with the explicit server name and the 636 port number, but this didn't help as well.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Noich

Answer 1

Perhaps you need the hotfix?

• FIX: DirectoryOperationException exception
• More on FIX: DirectoryOperationException exception

And you are an Admin or the id that your service is running under is an Admin on your PC right?

I take it you already looked into this:

• System.DirectoryServices.Protocols

"You may receive a less than helpful DirectoryOperationException(“The server cannot handle directory requests.”) what isn’t quite so amusing about this is that it didn’t even try to communicate with the server. The solution was to add the port number to the server. So instead of passing “Server” to open the LdapConnection, I passed “server:636”. By the way, LDAPS is port 636 – rather than the 389 port used by LDAP."

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Good point, I wouldn't expect that Win7/.NET 3.5 would need that patch. How about the info provided in this question:

• Setting user's password via System.DirectoryServices.Protocols in AD 2008 R2