Silent Auth Bug Let Users Sign Up But Blocked Them From Ever Logging In
A developer working on a serverless .NET and AWS-based application discovered a subtle authentication bug where the signup process completed successfully, but users were ultimately unable to log in. The system sent a PIN via email and SMS as expected, yet the code did not match what AWS Cognito required when users attempted account confirmation. The root cause lay in a complex dual-Cognito-User-Pool architecture, where a shared user identifier could fall out of sync between the legacy pool, the newer authentication pool, and the application's own database. An asynchronous background task called SendingEmailsAfterApprovalBot, which ran every 15 minutes after account approval, created a timing window during which these systems could become misaligned. Because every individual step appeared to succeed, the bug was particularly difficult to detect and trace.
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