I am working on a site with a custom db (ie. not aspnetdb) and am just creating a quick work around for login functionality.
Everything seems to be working ok accept the value of the cookie is always null during Application_AuthenticateRequest

 And here is the AuthenticateRequest functionality: 

Dim app As HttpApplication = CType(sender, HttpApplication)
        Dim cookie As HttpCookie = Response.Cookies(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName)

        If (cookie IsNot Nothing) Then
            Dim encryptedTicket As String = cookie.Value
            If (encryptedTicket IsNot Nothing) Then
                If (encryptedTicket.Length > 0) Then
                    Dim ticket As FormsAuthenticationTicket = FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(encryptedTicket)
                    Dim roles As String() = ticket.UserData.Split(New Char() {","})
                    Dim identity As FormsIdentity = New FormsIdentity(ticket)
                    Dim user As System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal = New System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(identity, roles)
                End If
                
            End If
        End If

Dim roles As String = "Admin"
            Dim ticket As FormsAuthenticationTicket = New FormsAuthenticationTicket(1, Login1.UserName, DateTime.Now, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(40), False, roles)
            Dim encryptedTicket As String = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket)
            Dim cookie As HttpCookie = New HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName)
            cookie.Value = encryptedTicket


            If (Response.Cookies(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName) IsNot Nothing) Then
                Response.Cookies.Remove((Response.Cookies(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName).Name))
            End If

            Response.Cookies.Add(cookie)

            Response.Redirect(FormsAuthentication.GetRedirectUrl(Login1.UserName, True), True)

Any ideas?

mpaterson:

Dim cookie As HttpCookie = Response.Cookies(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName)

Hi

Not sure where you get this example, but I suggest you use the same way as said in this KB to set user context from page.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311495/en-us

Hope it helps.

Yeah that is the approach I ended up taking.

Thanks