CRM 2016 Update 0.1 Bug with ADFS for Server 2012 R2

Following a successful upgrade to CRM 2016 and installation of the 0.1 Update, users could no longer authenticate against ADFS using the “internal” URL.

On the ADFS server I was seeing Event ID 364 in the Event Viewer:

Exception details:
Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.InvalidRequestException: MSIS7042: The same client browser session has made '6' requests in the last '0' seconds. Contact your administrator for details.

In efforts to get this working, I tried completely re-configuring CRM for claims and IFD and even recreated the Relying Party Trusts. All with no luck but apparently, I was not alone on this issue and Microsoft has acknowledged it as a bug with Update 0.1. The following forum thread has more info:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/9d4040eb-81fa-4144-ae4b-85ca4610aa1d/crm-2016-problem-with-claimsbased-authentication?forum=crm

These are the only real details on this issue currently available:

There were major code changes in Ara UR1 for authentication. The affected code is in Microsoft.Crm.Core.Security.Identity.IdentityExtensions.GetUserPrincipalName(). We are unable to cast from type ClaimsIdentity to a new type CrmIdentity. Therefore, the variable is null, and we cannot retrieve the information.

Please note that only the ‘internal’ URL is affected when IFD is setup. The ‘external’ URL (e.g. https://orgname.domain.com) that uses forms authentication works fine still. I will update this blog post as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: Service Pack 1 for CRM 2016 resolves this issue.

CRM 2016 New Form Rendering Engine

With the release of CRM 2016 (2015 Update 1 for CRM Online), comes a new form rendering engine built to provide better performance of form loads. The two main changes are focused around loading process of the form and the handling of the cache.

However, while the new rendering engine was built to help with performance you may actually notice the opposite taking place. In heavily customized environment, you might experience long stalls during form loads with messages reading “requesting data from CRM” and/or “loading business logic”.

If you are currently being plagued by these messages, it may be a good idea to turn the new rendering engine off. To do this, simply go to: Administration -> System Setting, scroll all the way down and you will see the “Use legacy form rendering” option. Turning it to “yes” will disable the new engine.

While this will help in the short term, it is advised to figure out what on your form is causing conflict with the new engine so that it can be fixed and the new engine can be turned back on for even better performance.