After completing fresh install of DNN 5.4.1 successfully, the login does not work as expected. I received email confirmations that the host and admin accounts for default portal were created and I can see the records in the User table. When I attempt to login it appears to authenticate the credentials successfully and redirects to default home page, but I am not seeing the Admin nor Host menu when logging in as Host. I suspect it is in fact authenticating me, because when I enter wrong password I receive error, but when entered correctly it redirects as it should. The login link remains "Login" rather than display hyperlinked user name.  I installed with default settings, and am wondering if 'AspNetSqlMembershipProvider' is confused with other DNN installs that also used defaults.

Yes clearing cookies seemed to resolve the problem.  I had hit on this solution as well when I saw that I could login with FF but not IE.  Not really sure how the cookies work in DNN, but odd to me that cookies from one install would affect ability to login to another instance. Host accounts between 2 installs had same UID and PWD.  Anyway thanks for your help.