Windows
Domain trust failed on sign-in
A domain-joined workstation showed "the trust relationship between this workstation and the domain failed" during sign-in. The issue was cleared by restarting the Active Directory/domain controller side and sign-in was confirmed working again.
Killed once by someone from XL.net, on 2026-03-11.
Affects
Hardware
- Windows workstation
What you see
- Sign-in fails with "the trust relationship between this workstation and the domain failed".
Why it happens
Likely The workstation's domain trust was out of sync or broken; the ticket does not identify the exact trigger.
When it shows up
A domain-joined Windows workstation cannot sign in and shows the trust relationship failure message.
You are in this case if:
- Exact sign-in error: "the trust relationship between this workstation and the domain failed"
- Domain-joined workstation affected at logon
- Active Directory/domain controller restart was used to clear the issue
1 fix below
The steps that killed it
The steps are behind a quick check
There are two ways in and both take a few seconds. Signing in opens the steps on every bug page; so does reading the picture.
Or answer this
Drawing a picture for you.
Can't read it? Sign in instead.
Someone from XL.net killed this on a Windows computer on 2026-03-11. It is written up from that one repair, so it cites no outside page.