Today, I ran into a Tableau issue that I couldn’t solve through googling. Using SAML and attempting to connect to Tableau Server from Tableau Desktop, I wasn’t given the option to enter a username and password. Instead, I received this message containing “errorCode=16:”

Here’s What Happened

I was signed in as a different user (non-publisher) in the browser for testing, and Tableau Desktop tried to use that session (like it should). I initially tried the obvious fixes: Clearing the browser cache and cookies in both Chrome and IE, restarting my computer, etc. Nothing worked. But then, I turned my attention back to Tableau and found the culprit!

The solution was to clear cookies within Tableau Desktop (Help -> Settings and Performance -> Clear saved sign-ins). The login screen returned, and all was rainbows and unicorns.