Question

Why does my flash[:notice] appear permanently on the redirected page? – Rails 3.1

In my ApplicationController I have this before_filter:

before_filter   :expire_session

def expire_session
  if session
    reset_session if session[:last_seen] < 15.minutes.ago
    flash[:error] = "Your session has timed out. Please log back in."
    session[:last_seen] = Time.now
  end
end

In my sessions_controller, these are the error and destroy actions:

  def error
    flash[:error] = "We're sorry. You need to sign in to get access to that page."
    redirect_to root_path
  end

  def destroy
    reset_session
    redirect_to root_path, :notice => "Signed out!"
  end

It works perfectly, i.e. it expires my session after X minutes of inactivity – which is what I want. The issue is, when it redirects me to the root_path, it has this message:

Your session has timed out. Please log back in.

If I reload the page, the message is still there. If I close the tab and come back to that URL, that message is still there.

The other messages generated in flash[:notice] or flash[:error] display only once and when you reload the page, they are gone.

Why is this one sticking around?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Try to rewrite expire method:

before_filter   :expire_session

def expire_session
  if session && session[:last_seen] < 15.minutes.ago
    reset_session
    flash[:error] = "Your session has timed out. Please log back in."
  elsif session
    session[:last_seen] = Time.now
  end
end