connect-redis and express-session results in req.session undefined - node.js

Question

I'm trying to get express-session to store the session in Redis, but it doesn't seem like it wants to save. When I revert back to default session store it works flawlessly. The Redis daemon is hosted on a Vagrant VM with default configuration, and the app is able to connect to it, although it doesn't want to save sessions to it.
Here's my code:
var express = require('express');
var glob = require('glob');
var favicon = require('serve-favicon');
var logger = require('morgan');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var compress = require('compression');
var methodOverride = require('method-override');
var session = require('express-session');
var passport = require('passport');
var redis = require('redis');
var RedisStore = require('connect-redis')(session);
var auth = require('./passport');
var flash = require('connect-flash');
module.exports = function(app, config) {
app.set('views', config.root + '/app/views');
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
// app.use(favicon(config.root + '/public/img/favicon.ico'));
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
extended: true
}));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(session({
store: new RedisStore({
host: config.redis.host,
port: config.redis.port
}),
secret: config.secret,
saveUninitialized: true,
resave: false
}));
/*app.use(session({
secret: config.secret,
saveUninitialized: true,
resave: true
}));*/
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
app.use(flash());
app.use(compress());
app.use(express.static(config.root + '/public'));
app.use(methodOverride());
var controllers = glob.sync(config.root + '/app/controllers/*.js');
controllers.forEach(function (controller) {
require(controller)(app);
});
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
var err = new Error('Not Found');
err.status = 404;
next(err);
});
if(app.get('env') === 'development'){
app.use(function (err, req, res, next) {
res.status(err.status || 500);
res.render('error', {
message: err.message,
error: err,
title: 'error'
});
});
}
app.use(function (err, req, res, next) {
res.status(err.status || 500);
res.render('error', {
message: err.message,
error: {},
title: 'error'
});
});
};
As you can see, I got the default one commented out, and if I remove those comments and comment out the redis store, it works as it should. Any clues why this is happening? I'm not getting a single error.

Answer 1

You probably have some connection errors, but connect-redis does not output them to console (see connect-redis source code). To see them you can create a separate module that creates a client instance and pass it to RedisStore constructor:
// redisClient.js
var redis = require('redis');
var redisClient = redis.createClient('localhost', 6379); // replace with your config
redisClient.on('error', function(err) {
console.log('Redis error: ' + err);
});
module.exports = redisClient;
Redis client emits also other event that may be helpful in debugging - see node-redis docs
// your code
var redisClient = require('./redisClient.js`);
(...)
app.use(session({
store: new RedisStore({
client: redisClient
}),
secret: config.secret,
saveUninitialized: true,
resave: false
}));