Session: Session not saving when redirect

[alex55132]

When an user logs in the data is saved in req.session, then I redirect the user to the homepage using res.redirect(url);. The problem appears when that redirect execute, the data from the session get lost but if instead of redirecting I go to the homepage manually (with the browser), the session data is available.

Here are some snippets of my code:

main.js:

var session = require('express-session');
var mySQLStore = require('express-mysql-session')(session);

let sessionConfiguration = session({ /*Session configuration */});

function checkSession(req, res, next) {
  if(req.session.user) {
    console.log("Exists");
    console.log(req.session.test);
    next();
  } else {
    console.log("No exist :( ");
    next();
  }
}

app.use('/', sessionConfiguration, checkSession, router);

redirect.js:

router.get('/route', function (req, res) {  

     req.session.test = "hey"
     console.log(req.session.test);

      //Data get lost here
      res.redirect("/");

  });

Also, the data of the session that remains when the redirect is done is this:

{"cookie":{"originalMaxAge":3600000, "expires":"2019-05-07T21:15:06.727Z", "httpOnly":false, "path":"/", "sameSite":true}}

[dougwilson]

Due to how most web browser handle redirects, you need to save before the redirect (https://github.com/expressjs/session#sessionsavecallback).

[alex55132]

@dougwilson Also tried that, still not working

[dougwilson]

What does your code look like when trying it?

[alex55132]

@dougwilson In redirect.js:

router.get('/route', function (req, res) {  

     req.session.test = "hey"
     console.log(req.session.test);

      req.session.save(function(err) {
         if(!err) {
             //Data get lost here
             res.redirect("/");
         }
      });

  });

[dougwilson]

Hm, that should work. I'll reopen so we can investigate. Can you provide a full app and reproduction steps?

[alex55132]

@dougwilson Well the full app is the code provided earlier with the express module, the router (which is a require for the router.js) and the line which listens for connections, its only that

[dougwilson]

Right but it doesn't run as is. I modified it enough to actually run and then I had no issue and session didn't loose data after I made the session save modification as well.

[alex55132]

@dougwilson Can you show the code please? Which version are you using? This is really really weird :/

[dougwilson]

I am using latest. I already left work and you'll have to wait until I get back on Thursday to get the code I had.

[alex55132]

@dougwilson What's the code?

[dougwilson]

I had to stay home today, but plan to be in tomorrow.

[alex55132]

@dougwilson any update? :S

[frnk94]

I had this issue and I resolve it by removing the sameSite option which was set to strict and I totally forgot about it. Maybe a log in the console could help developers when the cookie is not set due to same site policy being violated

[gireeshpunathil]

ping @alex55132 - did @frnk94 's suggestion help you?

[alex55132]

@gireeshpunathil Nope :(

[deveshMantra]

@alex55132 Can you share your code and steps to reproduce it?

[HarshithaKP]

@alex55132 Please find the session persistence with redirection example here :
https://gist.github.com/HarshithaKP/3d9ad81138245aa7527bf385d37daba7
Let me know if it helps resolving your issue.

[yeahga]

Same issue
@HarshithaKP, It did not help

[ghinks]

hello @alex55132 has this issue be resolved to your satisfaction? Are there additional questions associated with this issue. If there are not any current issues I would like to close this.

[alex55132]

I don't have the code I was working with anymore, I'll reopen if the problem appears again in the future. Closing

[umakanth-pendyala]

@dougwilson Hey, I have a similar issue. Could you please help me out here? https://github.com/expressjs/session/issues/790

[imjohnbo]

This did the trick for me inside an async function. I am using express-session with the @google-cloud/connect-firestore.

const myFunc = async (request, response) => {
    //...
    // save session before redirecting
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      request.session.save((err) => {      
        // redirect home
        if (err) {
          reject(err);
        }
        resolve(response.redirect('/'));
      })
    });
};