Azure - Unable to connect to RDP

Question

I had to change the admin password as it had expired via RDP. The server was working fine after the change.

Later I disconnected the session, and started it again, now we are getting the following error message:

An authentication error has occurred. The Local Security Authority cannot be contacted Remote computer: **.cloudapp.net

This same error keeps coming up even after 2 server restarts. The password is defiantly correct as typing a different password gives a "Password Incorrect" error.

There is no other way for us to access this server.

Answer 1

I found the answer here.

Your machine should still have a local administrator account (e.g. MachineName\Administrator), in which case you can login with the administrator account. In the RDP login prompt, you'll need to put the full user account (e.g., "MachineName\Administrator" where MachineName is your computer's name, otherwise it will default to "PreviousDomainUsed\Administrator").

This happened to me with an Azure VM because the domain administrator account I was using had an expired password and the Azure VMs enforce Network Level Authentication, which prevents you from changing the password through RDP. I was able to update the password by logging into the domain controller's VM, but the VM I couldn't log into didn't receive the update because the DNS settings were incorrect. I RDP'd into the faulty VM with the local administrator account, updated the DNS settings and ran "gpupdate" in a Powershell command prompt and everything began working again.

Hope this helps.