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FAQ.md

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Frequently Asked Questions

Note: auth0-angular uses Auth0 SPA JS behind the scenes, so be sure to check their FAQs too.

  1. User is not logged in after page refresh
  2. User is not logged in after successful sign in with redirect
  3. User is redirected to / after successful sign in with redirect
  4. Getting an infinite redirect loop between my application and Auth0
  5. Preserve application state through redirects

1. User is not logged in after page refresh

There are usually 3 reasons for this:

1. The user logged in with a Social Provider (like Google) and you are using the Auth0 Developer Keys

If you are using the Classic Universal Login experience, Silent Authentication won't work on the /authorize endpoint. This library uses Silent Authentication internally to check if a user is already signed in after page refresh, so that won't work either. You should either change to the New Universal Login experience or add your own keys to that particular social connection.

2. You are using a browser like Safari or Brave that has Intelligent Tracking Prevention turned on by default

In this case Silent Authentication will not work because it relies on a hidden iframe being logged in to a different domain (usually auth0.com) and browsers with ITP do not allow third-party (eg iframed) cookies. There are 2 workarounds for this using Rotating Refresh Tokens or Custom Domains

3. You are using Multifactor Authentication

In this case, when your users are not remembering this device for 30 days, Silent Authentication will not work because it can not get past the MFA step without the user's interaction. The consequence of it is that on both a page refresh as well as when trying to renew an expired Access Token, our SDK will throw a Multifactor authentication required error.

  • On page load, catch this error and redirect the user to Auth0 by calling loginWithRedirect, prompting the user with MFA.
  • Ensure you can renew access tokens without relying on Silent Authentication by using Rotating Refresh Tokens.

Because our SDK persists tokens in memory by default, refreshing the page relies on Auth0 side to restore our session. If you combine Rotating Refresh Tokens with localstorage, calling loginWithRedirect on page load should not be necessary.

AuthModule.forRoot({
  domain: 'YOUR_AUTH0_DOMAIN',
  clientId: 'YOUR_AUTH0_CLIENT_ID',
  useRefreshTokens: true,
  cacheLocation: 'localstorage'
}),

Important: This feature will allow the caching of data such as ID and access tokens to be stored in local storage. Exercising this option changes the security characteristics of your application and should not be used lightly. Extra care should be taken to mitigate against XSS attacks and minimize the risk of tokens being stolen from local storage.

2. User is not logged in after successful sign in with redirect

If after successfully logging in, your user returns to your SPA and is still not authenticated, do not refresh the page - go to the Network tab on Chrome and confirm that the POST to oauth/token resulted in an error 401 Unauthorized. If this is the case, your tenant is most likely misconfigured. Go to your Application Properties in your application's settings in the Auth0 Dashboard and make sure that Application Type is set to Single Page Application and Token Endpoint Authentication Method is set to None (Note: there is a known issue with the Auth0 "Default App", if you are unable to set Token Endpoint Authentication Method to None, create a new Application of type Single Page Application or see the advice in auth0-react/issues/93)

3. User is redirected to / after successful sign in with redirect

By default, the SDK is configured to redirect the user back to the root of the application after succesfully exchanging the code for the corresponding token(s).

This is what a typical default flow looks like:

  • AuthModule is configured with a specific redirectUrl (e.g. http://localhost:4200/callback).
  • User initiates login by calling AuthService.loginWithRedirect()
  • User is redirected to Auth0, including a redirectUri (in this case http://localhost:4200/callback)
  • After succesful authentication, the user is redirected back to the provided redirectUri, including a code and state query parameter (in this case http://localhost:4200/callback?code={code}&state={state})
  • The configured redirectUri is only used to process code and state in order to retrieve an actual token.
  • The user is then redirected to /

However, if the user should not be redirected back to / in the very last step, but instead they should end up at a different URL, this can be configured by providing that information to AuthService.loginWithRedirect():

this.authService.loginWithRedirect({
  appState: { target: '/some-url' }
});

By doing that, in the very last step the SDK will not redirect the user back to /, but to /some-url instead.

Restoring querystring parameters

The same approach can be used in order to restore application specific querystring parameters that need to be restored after being redirected back to your application.

this.authService.loginWithRedirect({
 appState: { target: '/some-url?query=value' }
});

4. Getting an infinite redirect loop between my application and Auth0

In situations where the redirectUri points to a protected route, your application will end up in an infinite redirect loop between your application and Auth0.

The redirectUri should always be a public route in your application (even if the entire application is secure, our SDK needs a public route to be redirected back to). This is because, when redirecting back to the application, there is no user information available yet. The SDK first needs to process the URL (code and state query parameters) and call Auth0's endpoints to exchange the code for a token. Once that is successful, the user is considered authenticated.

5. Preserve application state through redirects

To preserve application state through the redirect to Auth0 and the subsequent redirect back to your application (if the user authenticates successfully), you can pass in the state that you want preserved to the loginWithRedirect method:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { AuthService } from '@auth0/auth0-angular';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./app.component.css'],
})
export class AppComponent {
  constructor(public auth: AuthService) {}

  loginWithRedirect(): void {
    this.auth.loginWithRedirect({
      appState: {
        myValue: 'My State to Preserve',
      },
    });
  }
}

After Auth0 redirects the user back to your application, you can access the stored state using the appState$ observable on the AuthService:

import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core';
import { AuthService } from '@auth0/auth0-angular';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./app.component.css'],
})
export class AppComponent {
  constructor(public auth: AuthService) {}

  ngOnInit() {
    this.auth.appState$.subscribe((appState) => {
      console.log(appState.myValue);
    });
  }
}

By default, this method of saving application state will store it in Session Storage; however, if useCookiesForTransactions is set, a Cookie will be used instead.

This information will be removed from storage once the user is redirected back to your application after a successful login attempt (although it will continue to be accessible on the appState$ observable).