Solving a "The section is marked as being protected..." Error When Decrypting a .config With aspnet_regiis.exe tool

If you use the aspnet_regiis tool to encrypt sections of a .config file then you are ahead of the game is securing sensitive information with the apps configuration. If you have not used it before, I suggest trying it out sometime. However recently I came across an error while decrypting the 'appSettings' section that was as follows:

"The section is marked as being protected, but it does not have the correct format. It should contain only the <EncryptedData> child node."

It turns out that a new key that was auto generated in this particular project dealing with WCF was injected between the <EncryptedData> nodes (as shown below).

      </CipherData>
    <add key="ClientSettingsProvider.ServiceUri" value="" />
  </EncryptedData>

Once I removed the new key and attempted the decryption, everything worked properly! So if you come across this error, see if any new keys have been added (or any other elements for that matter) between the <EncryptedData> nodes because it will cause this error.