Node endpoints stop working after cookie is set - node.js

Question

I've been struggling with this issue for a while now. First, everything works great on my local PC, which makes it more difficult to test. When I upload the site to our public site, it breaks. I can log in just fine and get a cookie. But after that, all my endpoints stop working. Network tab shows nothing for request or response for them. I have tested with Postman. I can hit all the endpoints just fine until I log in and get a cookie. Then I can't hit those endpoints anymore, it just spins. If I delete the cookie, I can hit them again. So it's gotta be something with the way I'm setting the cookie or checking the cookie in my Node server.
Here is my main app.js Node server file. If any other files are needed, let me know.
const createError = require('http-errors');
const express = require('express');
const cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
const logger = require('morgan');
const passport = require('passport');
const session = require('express-session');
const flash = require('connect-flash');
const cors = require('cors');
const MySQLStore = require('express-mysql-session')(session);
const config = require('./config/config');
// MySql Store setup
const options = {
host: config.host,
port: config.port,
user: config.username,
password: config.password,
database: config.database
};
const sessionStore = new MySQLStore(options);
const app = express();
// Middleware
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(cookieParser(config.session_secret));
app.use(cors());
app.options('*', cors());
// app.use(function(req, res, next) {
// res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', '*');
// res.header(
// 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers',
// 'Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept'
// );
//
// next();
// });
//
// app.use(function(req, res, next) {
// res.setHeader('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', '*');
// res.setHeader(
// 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods',
// 'GET, POST, PUT, DELETE'
// );
// res.setHeader('Access-Control-Allow-Headers', 'Content-Type');
// res.setHeader('Access-Control-Allow-Credentials', true);
// next();
// });
// session setup
app.set('trust proxy', 1); // trust first proxy
app.use(
session({
secret: config.session_secret,
resave: false,
saveUninitialized: false,
store: sessionStore,
name: 'reg-portal-cid',
cookie: {
secure: false,
httpOnly: false,
maxAge: 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365
}
})
);
app.use(flash());
require('./API_Gateways/passport')(passport);
// passport authentication
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
// user identification
app.use(require('./middleware/user_identification'));
app.use('/auth', require('./API_Gateways/Auth_Routes'));
// Application Gateways
// app.use('/api', function(req, res) {
// return res
// .status(200)
// .json({ message: 'Success! Base API endpoint.' });
// });
app.use('/users', require('./API_Gateways/User_Gateway'));
app.use('/customers', require('./API_Gateways/Customer_Gateway'));
app.use('/SDS', require('./API_Gateways/SDS_Gateway'));
app.use('/chemicals', require('./API_Gateways/Chemical_Gateway'));
app.use('/PDF', require('./API_Gateways/PDF_Gateway'));
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
return res
.status(200)
.send(
'<h1>This is the Node server for the Registration Portal.</h1>'
);
});
// Logout Route
app.post('/logout', (req, res) => {
console.log('app logout route');
sessionStore.destroy(req.sessionID, (err) => console.log(err));
req.logout();
req.session.destroy();
res.clearCookie('reg-portal-cid');
// res.clearCookie('connect.sid');
return res.status(200).json({ message: 'User Logged Out' });
});
// 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);
});
process
.on('unhandledRejection', (reason, p) => {
console.error(reason, 'Unhandled Rejection at Promise', p);
})
.on('uncaughtException', (err) => {
console.error(err, 'Uncaught Exception thrown');
//process.exit(1);
});
module.exports = app;
Also, if this helps at all, after I have logged in with Postman and have a cookie, I click on the logout route and it just sits there and spins. When I hit cancel in Postman, my Node server terminal prints out POST /logout - - ms - - which tells me it is getting hit kind of.

Answer 1

The issue seems to be related to caching in the browser as there are no requests in the network tab of the browser.
To rule out this can you try to open the site in an incognito tab and try?

Answer 2

Try adding a memorystore, it worked for me
var MemoryStore = require('memorystore')(session)
app.use(session({
cookie: { maxAge: 86400000 },
store: new MemoryStore({
checkPeriod: 86400000 // prune expired entries every 24h
}),
resave: false,
secret: 'keyboard cat'
}))```

Answer 3

I figured out the issue. It was not anything anyone would have figured out from my question or from my code. So it is likely this question and answer will not be useful to anyone in the future. And it was very hard to find, like a needle in a haystack. I figured out that the session was not saving into the database on our live site, but it was on localhost.
So I started looking into why and started specifically looking into the express-mysql-session package. I figured out there was a way to run it in debug mode and once I did that, I instantly saw errors in the terminal saying it could not save to the database. So I knew I was on the right track. I looked up the specific error I was getting of ER_NOT_SUPPORTED_AUTH_MODE and that brought me to this Github issue thread: https://github.com/chill117/express-mysql-session/issues/109 And then I found twentythreetea's answer to run these 2 Mysql queries:
ALTER USER 'YOUR USERNAME'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'YOUR PASSWORD'
flush privileges;
I was using MySQL Workbench and figured out I had to remove the #'localhost' part. Once I did that, BOOM!! Everything is working beautifully on the live site!!