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Asked: 2026-05-10T15:06:52+00:00

I’ve encrypted the connectionstring in my web.config file using the steps in the link

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I’ve encrypted the connectionstring in my web.config file using the steps in the link below: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/WebFarmConnStringsNet20.aspx

However, whenever I call my application, it will give the following error:

Failed to decrypt using provider ‘CustomProvider’. Error message from the provider: The RSA key container could not be opened.

The server where I perform the encryption is a 64-bit Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2. Because of that I assign the ACL to NT Authority\Network Service. Yet it still doesn’t work.

Hope someone has some ideas what else do I need to check to get this working.

PS. If I used the default rsa key NetFrameworkConfigurationKey for encryption, then the connection string will not have an access problem.

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1 Answer

  1. Well, I found the source of the problem, and boy was it embarrassing. In the attribute keyContainerName, I spelled the name incorrectly.

    That it. That’s what caused the problem.

    Apparently, the encryption will work even if you provide an incorrect keyContainerName, which I incorrectly assumed will fail. So, once I decrypt the connectionstring and re-encrypt with the right keyContainerName, it works fine.

    BTW, make sure to decrypt your existing connectionstring before correcting the keyContainerName. The aspnet_regiis.exe will complain about bad data, because the provider is now different.

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