diff --git a/builtin/providers/azure/provider.go b/builtin/providers/azure/provider.go
index beafc3587..eef0ca49c 100644
--- a/builtin/providers/azure/provider.go
+++ b/builtin/providers/azure/provider.go
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ func Provider() terraform.ResourceProvider {
 func providerConfigure(d *schema.ResourceData) (interface{}, error) {
 	settingsFile, err := homedir.Expand(d.Get("settings_file").(string))
 	if err != nil {
-		return nil, err
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Error expanding the settings file path: %s", err)
 	}
 
 	config := Config{
diff --git a/builtin/provisioners/chef/resource_provisioner.go b/builtin/provisioners/chef/resource_provisioner.go
index 2a8e0def6..cb5f5d6ea 100644
--- a/builtin/provisioners/chef/resource_provisioner.go
+++ b/builtin/provisioners/chef/resource_provisioner.go
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/hashicorp/terraform/communicator"
 	"github.com/hashicorp/terraform/communicator/remote"
 	"github.com/hashicorp/terraform/terraform"
+	"github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir"
 	"github.com/mitchellh/go-linereader"
 	"github.com/mitchellh/mapstructure"
 )
@@ -182,6 +183,15 @@ func (r *ResourceProvisioner) decodeConfig(c *terraform.ResourceConfig) (*Provis
 		return nil, err
 	}
 
+	// We need to decode this twice. Once for the Raw config and once
+	// for the parsed Config. This makes sure that all values are there
+	// even if some still need to be interpolated later on.
+	// Without this the validation will fail when using a variable for
+	// a required parameter (the node_name for example).
+	if err := dec.Decode(c.Raw); err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+
 	if err := dec.Decode(c.Config); err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}
@@ -190,6 +200,14 @@ func (r *ResourceProvisioner) decodeConfig(c *terraform.ResourceConfig) (*Provis
 		p.Environment = defaultEnv
 	}
 
+	if p.ValidationKeyPath != "" {
+		keyPath, err := homedir.Expand(p.ValidationKeyPath)
+		if err != nil {
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("Error expanding the validation key path: %v", err)
+		}
+		p.ValidationKeyPath = keyPath
+	}
+
 	if attrs, ok := c.Config["attributes"]; ok {
 		p.Attributes, err = rawToJSON(attrs)
 		if err != nil {