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Loftware Designer Sign-In Loop Caused by Incorrect Windows Date/Time

Target Audience: Basic User, Advanced User, IT Manager

Article #: 13586

Summary

When Windows’ auto time-sync is disabled, Loftware Designer can loop endlessly at sign-in: the Microsoft SSO login succeeds in the browser, but Designer never completes activation. Fixing the date/time resolves it.

Situation and Symptoms

1. User opens Loftware Designer and is prompted with the “Choose how to connect your software” screen.

2. User selects Sign in (the default flow) and enters their Loftware Cloud URL prefix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Designer redirects to the default web browser (e.g. Microsoft Edge) to complete Microsoft SSO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Designer redirects to the default web browser (e.g. Microsoft Edge) to complete Microsoft SSO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. User successfully logs in with their Microsoft credentials, and the browser confirms success and instructs the user to close the window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Despite the successful browser sign-in, closing the window returns Loftware Designer to the “Sign in and connect” screen instead of completing activation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • The cycle repeats on every sign-in attempt, regardless of how many times the user re-enters their credentials.

Explanation

Loftware Cloud’s Microsoft SSO sign-in relies on time-sensitive OAuth tokens and TLS certificates to hand off a successful login from the browser back to the local Loftware Designer application. These tokens and certificates are only considered valid within a narrow time window, and that validity is checked against the local machine’s system clock.

If a user’s Windows date/time is incorrect — for example, several hours off due to automatic time sync being turned off — the token or certificate can appear invalid, expired, or “not yet valid” to Designer, even though the Microsoft login itself succeeded. As a result, Designer silently rejects the login and falls back to the initial sign-in screen, creating what looks like an infinite loop with no visible error message.

Solution

1. Open Windows Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time.

2. Turn on Set time automatically (and Set time zone automatically, if available).

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. If the time still looks incorrect, click Sync now to force an immediate sync, or manually correct the date and time as a temporary workaround.

4. Relaunch Loftware Designer and attempt to sign in again. The sign-in should now complete successfully without looping back to the “Choose how to connect your software” screen.

Additional Comments

Tested Using: Loftware Cloud 10.5

Inspired By: Nick Goulart, Application Engineer, Efficient Business Integrators

If you need further assistance, please contact us.

Author

Nick Goulart

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