October 13, 2020-KB4578974 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10, version 1903, Windows Server, version 1903, Windows 10, version 1909, and Windows Server, version 1909

ASP.Net applications fail during precompilation with error message

Symptoms
After you apply this October 13, 2020 Security and Quality Rollup for .NET Framework 4.8, some ASP.Net applications fail during precompilation. The error message that you receive will likely contain the words “Error ASPCONFIG.”

Cause
An invalid configuration state in either the “sessionState,” “anonymouseIdentification,” or “authentication/forms” sections of “System.web” configuration. This might occur during build-and-publish routines if configuration transformations leave the Web.config file in an intermediate state for precompilation.

Workaround

This issue was resolved in KB4601056.

ASP.Net applications may not deliver cookieless tokens in the URI

Symptoms
After you apply this October 1, 2020 Security and Quality Rollup for .NET Framework 4.8, some ASP.Net applications may not deliver cookieless tokens in the URI, possibly resulting in 302-redirect loops or lost or missing session state.

Cause
The ASP.Net features for Session State, Anonymous Identification, and Forms Authentication all rely on issuing tokens to a web client, and they all allow the option for those tokens to be delivered in a cookie or embedded in the URI for clients that don’t support cookies. The URI-embedding has long been an insecure and disrecommended practice and this KB quietly disables issuing tokens in URI’s unless one of these three features explicitly requests a cookie mode of “UseUri” in configuration. Configurations that specify “AutoDetect” or “UseDeviceProfile” may inadvertently result in attempted and failed embedding of these tokens in the URI.

Workaround

This issue was resolved in KB4601056.