Question

Alternate Title: How to redirect on session timeout

FINAL SOLUTION: Credit to: Robin Day (Although I tested Ben’s solution and it also works and the other two solutions are also both good solutions)

I got rid of the basepage that I had originally.

Put this in the Session_Start of Global.asax

void Session_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) 
{
    string cookie = Request.Headers["Cookie"];
    // Code that runs when a new session is started
    if ((null != cookie) && (cookie.IndexOf("ASP.NET_SessionId") >= 0))//&& !Request.QueryString["timeout"].ToString().Equals("yes"))  
    {
        if(Request.QueryString["timeout"] == null || !Request.QueryString["timeout"].ToString().Equals("yes"))
            Response.Redirect("Default.aspx?timeout=yes");
    }
}

Put this on the Defualt.aspx page:

 if (!IsPostBack)
    {
        if (Request.QueryString["timeout"] != null && Request.QueryString["timeout"].ToString().Equals("yes"))
        {
            Response.Write("<script>" +
               "alert('Your Session has Timedout due to Inactivity');" +
               "location.href='Default.aspx';" +
               "</script>");
        }
    }

This solution works even when the timeout occurs on the Default.aspx page

---

END SOLUTION

I have a base page that checks for session timeout. (thats all it does). I want to redirect to the home page if there is a session timeout. However, the home page also inherits from this base page.

I’m not sure if i’m explaining this well:

Step 1: One of my pages loads

Step 2: It sits for more than 20 minutes(this would cause session timeout).

Step 3: I click on something that causes poastback

Step 4: Basepage detects timeout and redirects to default.aspx

Step 5: As default.aspx loads, the basepage detects that there is still a timeout and once again tries to redirect to default.aspx.
Step 6: Repeat step 5

The bold is the undesired effect…

This is the basepage code.

using System;  
using System.Web.UI;   
public class SessionCheck : System.Web.UI.Page  
{   
public SessionCheck()  {}  

override protected void OnInit(EventArgs e)  
{  
    base.OnInit(e);  

    if (Context.Session != null)  
         {  
             //check the IsNewSession value, this will tell us if the session has been reset.  
             //IsNewSession will also let us know if the users session has timed out  
             if (Session.IsNewSession)  
             {  
                //now we know it's a new session, so we check to see if a cookie is present  
                 string cookie = Request.Headers["Cookie"];  
                 //now we determine if there is a cookie does it contains what we're looking for 
                 if ((null != cookie) && (cookie.IndexOf("ASP.NET_SessionId") >= 0))  
                 {  
                     //since it's a new session but a ASP.Net cookie exist we know  
                     //the session has expired so we need to redirect them  
                     Response.Redirect("Default.aspx?timeout=yes&success=no");  
                 }  
             }  
         }  
     }  
} 

Thanks!!!

(If you need further clarification please ask)

Note: I know that if I redirect to a page that does not inherit from this basepage it would fix the problem. But i don’t like this solution.

Answer 1

Can you use the event Session_OnStart within the Global.asax?

This will be fired once whenever a new session begins. You can do your redirect in there.

The key I guess though is that you only redirect to the home page if you’re not already on it. You can do this by just checking the URL in the Request object.