Question

In my Rails 3 app, I’m getting redirected to login during my signup process. The steps to signup are supposed to be:

1. User creates User and Profile
2. Upon saving user, user is logged into the app and redirected to Profiles#edit (/signup/join)
3. Upon saving profile, user is redirect to Profiles#show (/profiles/:id)

I’m getting redirected to /login after step 1, and I’m seeing a 302 error after the redirect. If I comment out my before_filter :authenticate in profiles_controller.rb and redo the steps above I don’t get redirected out of /signup/join but I get the following error:

NoMethodError in ProfilesController#edit
undefined method `profile' for nil:NilClass

I’m pointed to the first line of my Profiles#edit action:

def edit
  @profile = user.profile
  if @profile.higher_ed?
    higher_ed = HigherEd.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.higher_ed)
  end
  if @profile.employer?
    employer = Employer.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.employer)
  end
  render :layout => "join_form"
end

I’ve been making an attempt to implement CanCan in my app, so I thought that was the cause. However I commented out my entire ability.rb file and the problem persists. I’d obviously like to figure out how to fix this without commenting out the before_filter. So if anyone has an idea I’d greatly appreciate it. Since I’m dealing with CanCan which depends on a current_user, I’ll start with the definition of current_user in my application_controller.rb:

protected
  # Returns the currently logged in user or nil if there isn't one
  def current_user
    return unless session[:user_id]
    @current_user ||= User.find_by_id(session[:user_id])
    @current_user ||= User.find_by_auth_token!(cookies[:auth_token]) if cookies[:auth_token]
  end

  # Make current_user available in templates as a helper
  helper_method :current_user

Here’s my users_controller.rb:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  before_filter :authenticate, :only => [:edit, :update, :index]
  layout "application"

  def new
    @user = User.new
    @user.profile = Profile.new
    if logged_in?
      redirect_to current_user.profile
    end
  end

  def create
    @user = User.new(params[:user])
    if @user.save
      session[:user_id] = @user.id
      redirect_to join_path, :notice => 'User successfully added.'
      UserMailer.registration_confirmation(@user).deliver
    else
      render :action => 'new'
    end
  end

My profiles_controller.rb:

class ProfilesController < ApplicationController
  #before_filter :authenticate, :only => [:edit, :update]
  helper_method :find_or_create_group
  layout "application", :except => [:edit, :show]

  def new
    @profile = Profile.new(params[:profile])
  end

  def create
    @profile = Profile.new(params[:profile])
    if @profile.save
      redirect_to @user.profile, :notice => 'User successfully added.'
    else
      render :new
    end
    if @profile.higher_ed?
      HigherEd.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.higher_ed)
    end
    if @profile.employer?
      Employer.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.employer)
    end
    if @profile.job_title?
      JobTitle.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.job_title)
    end
    if @profile.high_school?
      HighSchool.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.high_school)
    end
  end

  def user
    @user = current_user
  end

  def edit
    @profile = user.profile
    if @profile.higher_ed?
      higher_ed = HigherEd.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.higher_ed)
    end
    if @profile.employer?
      employer = Employer.find_or_create_by_name(:name => @profile.employer)
    end
    render :layout => "join_form"
  end

My sessions_controller.rb:

class SessionsController < ApplicationController  
  def new
  end

  def create
    if user = User.authenticate(params[:email].downcase, params[:password])
      session[:user_id] = user.id
      cookies.permanent[:auth_token] = user.auth_token
      if user.profile.higher_ed?
        redirect_to user.profile, :notice => "Logged in successfully"
      else
        redirect_to join_path, :notice => "Logged in successfully"
      end
    else
      flash.now[:alert] = "Invalid login/password. Try again!"
      render :action => 'new'
    end
  end

  def destroy
    reset_session
    cookies.delete(:auth_token)
    redirect_to root_path, :notice => "You successfully logged out"
  end
end

My ability.rb for CanCan:

class Ability
  include CanCan::Ability

  def initialize(user)
    user ||= User.new  guest user

    if user.role? :admin
      can :manage, :all
    else
      can :manage, :all
    end
  end
end

My routes.rb:

match "/signup/join" => "profiles#edit", :as => 'join'

Answer 1

I got it working by reworking my current_user logic. It’s now:

def current_user
  @current_user ||= lookup_user
end

def lookup_user
  if cookies[:auth_token]
    User.find_by_auth_token!(cookies[:auth_token])
  elsif session[:user_id]
    User.find_by_id(session[:user_id])
  end
end

That seems to have done the trick.