Question

Im trying to do an ajax call to login using credentials entered into a jquery ui dialog.

The ajax call properly logs the user and successfully reaches the return RedirectToAction(“Index”, “Home”) call. However the user does not immediately see that they are logged in. I have to refresh the page for the _LoginPartial status bar to switch from Register/Login to Username/Logout.

I would think the RedirectToAction(“Index”, “Home”) call would refresh the page.
I tried to switch it to RedirectToAction(“Index”, “Some other page”) and although it runs through the action method specified is does not redirect to that page.

Here is the ajax call:

          $.ajax({
                            url: "/Account/Login",
                            type: "POST",
                            data: JSON.stringify($('#loginForm').serializeObject()),
                            dataType: 'json',
                            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                            complete: function () {
                                $('.dialogContainer').dialog("close");
                            }
                        });

controller:

    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Login(LoginModel model, string returnUrl)
    {

        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            if (Membership.ValidateUser(model.UserName, model.Password))
            {
                FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(model.UserName, model.RememberMe);
                if (Url.IsLocalUrl(returnUrl))
                {
                    return Redirect(returnUrl);
                }
                else
                {
                    return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
                }
            }
            else
            {
                ModelState.AddModelError("", "The user name or password provided is incorrect.");
            }
        }

        // If we got this far, something failed, redisplay form
        return View(model);
    }

Answer 1

RedirectToAction does not work when doing an Ajax call. For the same reason the ajax call does not cause a page refresh, so too does your RedirecToAction not cause the page to redirect. You are redirecting the Ajax request, not the page.

You will have to return some kind of indicator of success to your ajax call and have your ajax call redirect the page.