Express Session Middleware - node.js

Question

I am doing the Coursera course on Server-Side Development and I have followed the instructions precisely. I keep getting this error, however. There are no relevant posts on their Discussion platform, and I cannot seem to debug because (if you see below) the trace is solely referring to files in the node_modules folder that are established upon initialization of the project as a node project. Thus, I am stuck. Presumably there is "something" wrong with my code, but since the trace is not referring to anything I coded, I am lost. I also thought that perhaps I failed to install express, but I have tried reinstalling as per instructions in the course and that doesn't seem to solve the problem.
Has anyone encountered this specific error when creating a Node.js project and, if so, what did you do to solve?
Login sessions require session support. Did you forget to use express-session middleware?
This is the app.js code:
var createError = require('http-errors');
const express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var logger = require('morgan');
const session = require('express-session');
var FileStore = require('session-file-store')(session);
var passport = require('passport');
var authenticate = require('./authenticate');
var config = require('./config');
var indexRouter = require('./routes/index');
var usersRouter = require('./routes/users');
var dishRouter = require('./routes/dishRouter');
var leaderRouter = require('./routes/leaderRouter');
var promoRouter = require('./routes/promoRouter');
const uploadRouter = require('./routes/uploadRouter');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
mongoose.Promise = require('bluebird');
const Dishes = require('./models/dishes');
const url = config.mongoUrl;
const connect = mongoose.connect(url);
connect.then((db) => {
console.log('Connected correctly to the server.');
}, (err) => {console.log(err); });
var app = express();
// Secure traffic only
app.all('*', (req, res, next) => {
if (req.secure) {
return next();
}
else {
res.redirect(307, 'https://' + req.hostname + ':' + app.get('secPort') + req.url);
}
});
// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session()); // FOund this in the Forum not Given Code
// Note that these two mountings occur before authentication
app.use('/', indexRouter);
app.use('/users', usersRouter);
// Authentication is now completed
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
// This is where the mounting occurs
app.use('/dishes', dishRouter);
app.use('/promotions', promoRouter);
app.use('/leaders', leaderRouter);
app.use('/imageUpload',uploadRouter);
// catch 404 and forward to error handler
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
next(createError(404));
});
// error handler
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
// set locals, only providing error in development
res.locals.message = err.message;
res.locals.error = req.app.get('env') === 'development' ? err : {};
// render the error page
res.status(err.status || 500);
res.render('error');
});
module.exports = app;
This is the index.js file:
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
/* GET home page. */
router.get('/', function(req, res, next) {
res.render('index', { title: 'Express' });
});
module.exports = router;

Answer 1

Per the doc for session-file-store, the proper initialization is this:
const session = require('express-session');
const FileStore = require('session-file-store')(session);
const fileStoreOptions = {};
app.use(session({
store: new FileStore(fileStoreOptions),
secret: 'keyboard cat'
}));
You seem to be missing the app.use() part that actually initializes express-session.