Error Activating Partnership "Error Activating Partnership <PartnershipName>" Failed to obtain the BackChannelAuthType attribute

Products

• SITEMINDER

Issue/Introduction

Getting an error when activating SAML IDP partnership as follows "Error Activating Partnership <PartnershipName>"     

[5724/6176][Thu Jan 16 2025 09:29:34.404][FssObject.cpp:324][FssObjectType::isUsingBasicBackchannelSAML2][ERROR][sm-xobfss-00400] 

Invalid SAML Service Provider CA.SM::SAMLv2SP@21-06fd5XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX: Failed to obtain the BackChannelAuthType attribute.

Environment

All siteminder supported Releases 

Resolution

This can happen by a broken link that causes  BackchannelConfigLink  attribute to be empty in the SPPartnership.

During activation, the runtime object SAMLv2SP gets created from SPPartnership and a check happens on the new object to make sure all the required SAML attributes are satisfied.

Since the BackChannelAuthType is generated as empty within the SAMLv2SP , the Policy server reports the Error --> Invalid SAML Service Provider CA.SM::SAMLv2SP@21-06fd5XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX: Failed to obtain the BackChannelAuthType attribute.

To fix This, you can attempt to Modify the Partnership and just go through the tabs hitting the Next button and then click Finish. this should cause the BackchannelConfigLink  attribute  in the SPPartnership to get populated with the Default link values to BackchannelConfig Objects.

Verify from XPSExplorer --> SPPartnership --> that the BackchannelConfigLink  got populated and if yes the Partnership should activate this time with no issue.

If it is still empty after Modifying the Partnership and saving it, you can use the Default values from any other Partnership SPPartnership and add it manually through XPSExplorer and Partnership should activate.