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Asked: 2026-05-22T18:17:54+00:00

I have a WCF self-hosted as a Windows Service. When I start the service

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I have a WCF self-hosted as a Windows Service.

When I start the service (under the NETWORK_SERVICE account), I can consume the service from my ASP.NET application on a different server.

However, the business rules have changed. Now I need to run the service under my own account. I am able to stop the service, and start it again under my account. No problem there.

Until I try to consume the service from my ASP.NET application on the other service. I get:

A call to SSPI failed, see inner exception

I’m relatively certain there’s something I need to do security wise to eliminate this error, being new to all this I just don’t know what.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Usually this is a sign of a missing or misconfigured SPN, which gets in the way when you’re using windows authentication (at the transport or message level) and Kerberos is being negotiated.

    Notice that how/when the error manifests itself might depend on the way the hostname (or IP address) of the service host is used in the URL used by the client, since WCF will try, by default, to deduce the right SPN to use based on the URL information, unless you explicitly override it by setting the endpoint identity.

    So likely all you need to do is register an SPN (using setspn.exe) for your new service and make sure your client uses an appropriate identity.

    There’s some more extra information on how WCF uses service identities here, here and here.

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