Auth Attempt Failed: Public Key Does Not Exist

[509dave16]

TLDR

@amark I think the issue stems from the gunRoot not being populated with 'public key': 'user' pairs. query.js looks for those. After create.js puts one on the root, I can see it on my server peer and my browser peer. But for some reason on refresh, the direct children of the root for public keys are not there anymore on the browser peer.

Expected behavior

When executing gun.user().auth(<username>,<password>, cb), I expect that a previously created user should be logged in.

Resulting behavior

Troubleshooting Information

• Source File Where Error Occurs: File where error is originally thrown: https://github.com/amark/gun/blob/master/sea/query.js
• Line That Fails To Do Its Job: https://github.com/amark/gun/blob/master/sea/query.js#L30
• Because Of This Line(offender): https://github.com/amark/gun/blob/master/sea/query.js#L26

Hypothesis

• gunRoot.get(pub).get((at, ev) => {(offender) is trying to access a path where there is no put value.
• Somehow between refreshes after a creating a user the nodes that should be there for public keys are gone

[509dave16]

@amark Found a work around. The way that recall is handled is interesting but there's problems with gun.user().recall({ sessionStorage: true}); in how the promise settles and the fact that a callback is not passed to the gun.user().auth(...). So I pass the recall option and re-implement what recall does for auth.

// Instantiating Gun
const gun = Gun({
	peers: ['http://localhost:8082/gun'],
	recall: true
});
...
// Elsewhere in whatever is used to check for authentication
public async isAuthenticated(): Promise<any> {
	const tmp = window.sessionStorage;
		if (tmp) {
			if (tmp.alias && tmp.tmp) {
			try {
			        await this.login({ username: tmp.alias, password: tmp.tmp});
				return true;
			} catch (e) {
				console.log(e);
			}
		}
	}
	return false;
}

I'm hoping to contribute to helping address whatever issues currently exist with SEA for auth. Let me know if what above doesn't make sense.

[509dave16]

@amark I thought my work around above worked, but it actually doesn't :( . When trying to access User nodes, nothing was happening. Below are screenshots of the same attempt to .get a profile node from the User like this gun.user().get('profile');

Right after logging in

Right after refresh

Turns out those sessionStorage items are only temporary and they are gone on refresh.

[509dave16]

@amark Closing this for now. It got muddied with different issues I ran into. Here's the gist of what I have done to make this work by doing my own storage management.
https://gist.github.com/509dave16/ee952c687424822dbc667cae1d71cff7

[amark]

@509dave16 excellently reported, thank you for the thoroughness, it is super appreciated/helpful.

And also super thanks for dealing with workarounds for now.

sessionStorage should persist upon refresh (but not exit, and come back later).

It seems to me that maybe it isn't .recall that is failing, but my comment in #579 ?

[jadbox]

@509dave16 did you find out how you solved the "Public key is missing" error? I can't seem to get past it.

[509dave16]

@jadbox I avoided using recall. So stored the credentials in the session myself. And then would re-authenticate on every page if the user wasn't already logged in. But this just introduced a new problem where the re-authentication on refresh introduced a new owner every time. So any data created the first time the creds were authenticated would be fine. Until I did a refresh and the re-auth kicked in again, introducing a new owner that didn't have access.

My personal recommendation would be to avoid using SEA for now. And just use straight up gun. If you alias it like 'const gunUser = gun;then later when SEA works properly you could just switch it toconst gunUser = gun.user()`.