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maggie.deppewalker
Employee
October 14, 2026

KB-2413 Users in SSO Group Cannot Log in via Native Appian Login Page After Enabling SAML

Symptoms

  1. Users cannot log in via the native Appian authentication page after SAML is enabled.
  2. Users are redirected to the native login page when navigating to the base environment URL instead of the SSO login page.
  3. The following error appears in application server logs: 
    java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "org.opensaml.saml.saml2.core.Assertion.getSubject()" because "assertion" is null
    com.appiancorp.security.auth.saml.SamlFailedLoginAuditLogger - Recipient in SAML assertion is not available
    com.appiancorp.security.auth.saml.SamlFailedLoginAuditLogger - NotOnOrAfter in SAML assertion is not available

Cause

Users who are members of the SAML authentication group cannot authenticate via the native Appian login page. Once SAML is enabled and users are added to the SAML authentication group, they must authenticate through the SSO-specific URL or a configured default sign-in page that redirects to the SSO URL. Attempting to log in via the native authentication page for users in the SAML authentication group results in authentication failure. This is expected product behavior as documented at SAML for Single Sign-On.

Action

Ensure users authenticate via the SSO-specific URL format: <base environment url>/suite/design?signin=<web address identifier>, where the web address identifier is configured in the SAML settings. Please also verify that the SAML configuration is tested successfully from the Admin Console before enabling SAML on the environment.

Additionally, please feel free to configure one of the options listed below based on your use case.

  1. Configure a default sign-in page in the Admin Console that redirects users to the SSO sign-in URL when navigating to the base environment URL. Refer to Configure the Default Sign-In Page for configuration instructions.
  2. Appian has the ability to store non-expiring cookies on users' browsers that tell Appian where the user should sign in. For more information on this, please see the documentation linked here.

Refer to Additional Configuration Details and Notes for additional SAML configuration details.

Affected Versions

This article applies to all versions of Appian.

Last Reviewed: October 2026.

 

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