ASP.NET Password TextBox loses value after Postback

After creating a registration wizard, the password field was not being saved. After tracing the problem, it was found that the TextBox for the password was losing its value when additional postbacks occur prior to processing.

The first page of the wizard prompts for the generic user information such as name, email, and password. A postback is performed and a secondary wizard page prompts for some additional information. When the wizard's finish method is called, we store all of the information.

The fix is simple. The password's "Text" property is not stored in ViewState (we're assuming for some security reason). We counter this by simply setting (and reading from) the TextBox's attributes.

You can leave your ASP.NET control as it is. In the page's Load event, simply add an attribute to the Password TextBox's and read this attribute instead of the "Text" property when you want to retrieve it.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   // Only set on postback where the txtPassword.Text property has a value
   if(IsPostBack && txtPassword.Text != string.Empty)
   {            
      txtPassword1.Attributes["value"] = txtPassword.Text;          
   }
}

Finally, when you want to retrieve the value, just access the attribute instead of the Text property.

protected void WizardRegister_FinishButtonClick(object sender, WizardNavigationEventArgs e)
{
   if (Page.IsValid)
   {
      Ramsay.CoreLibraries.PendingAccount pa = new Ramsay.CoreLibraries.PendingAccount();
      pa.Password = txtPassword.Attributes["value"];  
      pa.Save();
   }
}

Submitted by bmancini on Mon, 07/27/2009 - 08:48
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Comments

#1 Anonymous

You will have to rely on a secure connection, by putting the value in "txtPassword1.Attributes["value"] = txtPassword.Text;" your password is view able in the page source. Which could be kinda bad.

07/01/2011 - 12:38

#2 Anonymous

Wish I'd found this sooner, very straight forward.

10/19/2010 - 04:57

#3 Anonymous

Saved my time and energy. ONly if google could put it on top...

05/02/2010 - 00:20

#4 Anonymous

A better method would be to create a property that saves the password in the encrypted viewstate like so:

Private Property Password As String
Get
Return CType(ViewState("Password"), String)
End Get
Set(value As String)
ViewState("Password") = value
End Set
End Property

Then we can set the password on postback like so:

Me.Password = textboxpassword.Text

And we can read the password on subsequent postbacks like so:

thepassword = Me.Password

10/18/2011 - 08:07

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