Connection to the forum issue

crazycells

Some users are complaining about a connection issue to the forum, we use NodeBB 1.18.6 and here is the log:

Is the problem because of a plugin? Here is our plugin list:

    nodebb-theme-persona
    nodebb-plugin-dbsearch
    nodebb-widget-essentials
    nodebb-rewards-essentials
    nodebb-plugin-composer-default
    nodebb-plugin-browsing-users
    nodebb-plugin-calendar
    nodebb-plugin-osm-map
    nodebb-plugin-feed
    nodebb-plugin-sso-facebook
    nodebb-plugin-sso-twitter
    nodebb-plugin-sso-google
    nodebb-plugin-night-mode
    nodebb-plugin-poll
    nodebb-plugin-canned-responses
    nodebb-plugin-audio-embed
    nodebb-plugin-emoji
    nodebb-plugin-emoji-one
    nodebb-plugin-btn-spoilers-yesilkart
    nodebb-plugin-recent-cards
    nodebb-plugin-tenor-gif
    nodebb-plugin-mentions
    nodebb-plugin-markdown
    nodebb-plugin-extended-markdown
    nodebb-plugin-google-analytics
    nodebb-plugin-customize
    nodebb-plugin-two-way-block
    nodebb-plugin-twitter
    nodebb-plugin-cards2
    nodebb-plugin-iframely
    nodebb-plugin-soundpack-default
    nodebb-plugin-dwnvtr
    nodebb-plugin-spam-be-gone
    nodebb-plugin-embed

Thanks in advance

<baris>

2022-01-08T20:27:16.640Z [4567/2026] -  [31merror [39m: /assets/vendor/server/php/index.php?file=tf2rghf.jpg
Error: Login sessions require session support. Did you forget to use `express-session` middleware?
    at SessionStrategy.authenticate (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/passport/lib/strategies/session.js:46:41)
    at attempt (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/passport/lib/middleware/authenticate.js:369:16)
    at authenticate (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/passport/lib/middleware/authenticate.js:370:7)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)
    at trim_prefix (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:323:13)
    at /home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:284:7
    at Function.process_params (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:341:12)
    at next (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:275:10)
    at initialize (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/passport/lib/middleware/initialize.js:89:5)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)

That's an error I haven't seen before. Did you make any changes recently? Is it just some users that are affected by this?

crazycells

@baris Yes, two weeks ago we have upgraded to 1.18.6 from 1.13...

But we have used Cloudflare while setting up, and it did not work well with the forum (https://community.nodebb.org/post/86544) , then last week we have re-installed the forum without Cloudflare...

many users were having connection problems including us with CloudFlare... that is why we had to remove it. After the update (for the past 5 days) so far, several users have complained about this yet, but usually, when someone mentions about a problem, others just wait until the problem is resolved, so I do not know how many people are having the problem.

Additionally, before the upgrade... when you visited the forum on mobile, leave the app (Safari), and then when you come back to the forum, your account was still logged in, however after the upgrade when you visit the app, you are automatically logged off each time.

crazycells

@baris said in Connection to the forum issue:

Error: Login sessions require session support. Did you forget to use express-session middleware?

we have many of this error in the log:

Error: Login sessions require session support. Did you forget to use express-session middleware?

we never had such an error before.

<baris>

It could be due to https://community.nodebb.org/post/80759 since you upgraded from 1.13.x to 1.18.x, there was a major socket.io version change that would cause connection issues until users refresh and get the new socket.io client.

The csrf errors from your pastebin, we are investigating but haven't found a way to reproduce yet. If you put some additional debug logs in the error handler that would help us debug.

You can modify src/controllers/errors.js to have the below block.

exports.handleErrors = async function handleErrors(err, req, res, next) { // eslint-disable-line no-unused-vars
	const cases = {
		EBADCSRFTOKEN: function () {
			winston.error(`${req.path}\n${err.message}`);
			console.log(req.session, req.headers);
			res.sendStatus(403);
		},

Once you get a csrf error in the logs it should show the session/headers info. You can check that to see if it has the csrf_token

crazycells

@baris thanks, we will do that and let you know the logs...

crazycells

@baris this is the new log:

https://pastebin.com/1r7VsBXg

<baris>

There is a very recent fix for csrf issues https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/pull/10159

Not sure if this will make any difference in the errors you are seeing though. Specifically the ones related to facebook auth.

2022-01-14T05:15:19.727Z [4567/8739] -  [31merror [39m: /forum/auth/facebook/callback?code=xxx&state=yyy
Error: We were unable to log you in, likely due to an expired session. Please try again
    at router.<computed>.req.session.registration (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/src/routes/authentication.js:113:52)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)
    at next (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:137:13)
    at Route.dispatch (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:112:3)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)
    at /home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:281:22
    at Function.process_params (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:341:12)
    at next (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:275:10)
    at rewrite (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/src/controllers/home.js:26:10)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/home/fsuzer/nodebb/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)

Can you reproduce this error when you try to login via facebook?

crazycells

@baris I did not have any problem logging via facebook app. Additionally, there was nothing on the logs...

So, as you have suggested before, I guess we will stop seeing the connection problems when the users delete cookies and start a new session on the browser? Did I understand it correctly?

<baris>

@crazycells Yeah hopefully that's should resolve it.