Nodejs passport authentication hanging - node.js

Question

I'm following a nodejs book here: https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/mean-web-development
All is going smoothly until I try and log in using the passport module. It just hangs with no errors. I have tried other solutions I've found on SO such as re-ordering the middleware, but I think they might be for different versions of Express, as some of the syntax looks slightly different (and doesn't work). Here are the relevant parts. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Package.json:
{
"name": "MEAN",
"version": "0.0.3",
"description": "First mean app",
"dependencies": {
"express": "~4.8.8",
"morgan": "~1.3.0",
"compression": "~1.0.11",
"body-parser": "~1.8.0",
"method-override": "~2.2.0",
"express-session": "~1.7.6",
"ejs": "~1.0.0",
"connect-flash": "~0.1.1",
"mongoose": "~3.8.15",
"passport": "~0.2.1",
"passport-local": "~1.0.0"
}
}
express.js:
module.exports = function(){
var app = express();
if(process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development'){
app.use(morgan('dev'));
}else if(process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production'){
app.use(compress());
}
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
extended: true
}));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(methodOverride());
app.use(session({
saveUnitialized: true,
resave: true,
secret: config.sessionSecret
}));
app.set('views', './app/views');
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.use(flash());
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
require('../app/routes/index.server.routes.js')(app);
require('../app/routes/users.server.routes.js')(app);
app.use(express.static('./public'));
return app;
};
passport.js
module.exports = function(){
var User = mongoose.model('User');
passport.serializeUser(function(user, done){
done(null, user.id);
});
passport.deserializeUser(function(id, done){
User.findOne({
_id: id
}, '-password -salt'), function(err, user){
done(err, user);
};
});
require('./strategies/local.js')();
};
the routing:
app.route('/signin')
.get(users.renderSignin)
.post(passport.authenticate('local',{
successRedirect: '/',
failureRedirect: '/signin',
failureFlash: true
}));
Edit: it seems to be the passport.deserializeUser function where things break

Answer 1

Well I've gone to the passport docs, and pasted in the code from there, and it seems to work. So... any idea why the MEAN book example isn't working?
Code that worked:
passport.deserializeUser(function(id, done) {
User.findById(id, function(err, user) {
done(err, user);
});
});