Node-solid-server: Cannot register account ("Account already exists")

[angelo-v]

Solid Server Versions:

• 5.0.0-beta.2
• 5.0.0-beta.3
• 5.0.0-beta.4

Expected Behaviour: After setting up a solid server it should be possible to register an account

Actual Behaviour: When trying to register any account by submitting the registration form, the following error occurs: "Account already exists"

Steps to reproduce:

1. Visit https://angelo.veltens.org or set up your own solid-server on version 5.0.0-beta.3
2. Click Register
3. Fill out the registration form
4. Click Submit
5. See the mentioned error message on top of the page

[RubenVerborgh]

Are you in multiuser mode?

[angelo-v]

Since I did not enable it explicitly I guess not

[angelo-v]

This is the form data that is transmitted to api/accounts/new:

username: solid-demo
password: *******
repeat_password: *******
name: solid-demo
email: [email protected]
externalWebId: 
returnToUrl: 
response_type: 
display: 
scope: 
client_id: 
redirect_uri: 
state: 
nonce: 
request: 

Is it correct, that the latter params are all empty?

[RubenVerborgh]

Yeah it’s the multiUser setting. Confusingly wrong error message. I’d
recommend setting it up again.

[angelo-v]

I do not want to run in multiuser mode. So how do I disable it, and why is it enabled in the first place?

[RubenVerborgh]

Not enabled by default; but then you cannot sign up (another time).

[angelo-v]

But how can I sign up the first time?

[RubenVerborgh]

Mmm that is weird indeed.

[angelo-v]

Unfortunately the solid-server logs are quite silent... It's hard to find out what is going on. Is there some verbose mode or something?

[kjetilk]

Sorry, I want to introduce a multi-level logger for exactly these occasions, but we haven't gotten to that yet. I'll try to see if I can reproduce the behaviour when getting back to work on Monday.

[kjetilk]

Unfortunately the solid-server logs are quite silent... It's hard to find out what is going on. Is there some verbose mode or something?

Actually, up to recently, I had verbose output with no further ado, but for some reason, I now need to set an environment variable, e.g.

export DEBUG=solid:*

does that improve the logging situation for you, @angelo-v ?

[angelo-v]

Thanks, I tried that already, but didn't help. If you say it should, I will try again, to be sure I had no typo or something

[angelo-v]

Ok, got it working, but doesn't help that much:

 solid:accounts Canceling account creation, https://angelo.veltens.org/profile/card#me already exists 

[megoth]

I've been able to reproduce this bug (not being able to create accounts when server is set to singleuser; I'll look into this when I have time.

[kjetilk]

So, @dmitrizagidulin , @megoth and I had a meeting to survey outstanding issues, and this turned out to be the most important regression that we've had so far.

It has surfaced because the previous code checked to see if a root .acl existed to see if a user existed, but per the spec, the root .acl must always exist, so to make sure it does, we added it, and therefore introduced this problem as a side effect.

But we have a plan! So, just to say, great testing! It is very valuable!

[angelo-v]

Great that you have found the cause! Nice work, enjoy the holidays

[kjetilk]

Are you available to look at this @joachimvh ?

[joachimvh]

@kjetilk I'll look at it tomorrow

[joachimvh]

@kjetilk do you have a config file on which this problem occurs? Because I can't seem to reproduce this problem on a clean install with "multiuser": false (user registration works for me there)

[kjetilk]

@joachimvh have you checked out the release/v5.0.0 branch?

[kjetilk]

I think we have it fixed now, I'll look into releasing a new beta tonight.