Skip to main content

Troubleshooting Smartcard Issues

Sophie V
Updated

Purpose

If you receive an error when logging into Medicus on completing actions using your smartcard, you may need to do some troubleshooting to understand what may be causing the issue. 

This error is not related to your Medicus account, but following the steps below should help to resolve the error and allow you to log in or complete the action. The following information is taken from NHS England's troubleshooting guide.

Troubleshooting steps

When trying to log in with a smartcard, you may see a Smartcard Authentication Failure error.

You can see an example of this error below. It might start with the number 400_ or 500_.

Smartcard authentication failure error message

This can happen because:

  • NHS Credential Management is not running or is out of date
  • You've recently installed or updated NHS Credential Management but have not rebooted the device
  • NHS Identity Agent is not running or is out of date
  • The smartcard is not in the reader
  • Your smartcard is blank or faulty
  • You do not have any roles on your smartcard
  • Your browser is not supported
  • You've cancelled login, or lost your network connection just before login completed
  • You are using the NHS Chrome extension

Check the smartcard is in the reader

Make sure your smartcard is facing the right direction in the reader, and that the reader is not damaged, and try again. If it still doesn't work, try in a colleague's machine if possible.

Check your smartcard is active

You will have to contact your Registration Authority. They can check your profile has an active smartcard with the right roles applied. If you can log in with NHS Identity Agent successfully, but do not see the role selection screen, it's likely you do not have any roles on your profile, and therefore cannot access any service at all.

Check your workstation setup

Use the setup checker tool to identify the specific issue causing the error.

Check Credential Manager is running

  1. Find NHS Credential Management in your application tray

  2. Right click and select Exit

  3. Search NHS Credential Management in your Windows toolbar
  4. Double click on NHS Credential Management to re-open it
  5. Check that the icon appears in your application tray
     

For anything else

Smartcard problems are almost always due to your software or device setup, and you will need to contact your local IT support team. Depending on your organisation, this may be through your IT helpdesk, or via a dedicated Registration Authority team. There are further instructions for IT teams here.