amplify-js: Auth - Offline Session Management in React Native (expired tokens while offline)

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I have searched for duplicate or closed issues and discussions.
I have read the guide for submitting bug reports.
I have done my best to include a minimal, self-contained set of instructions for consistently reproducing the issue.

JavaScript Framework

React Native

Amplify APIs

Authentication

Amplify Categories

auth

Environment information

  System:
    OS: macOS 12.0.1
    CPU: (10) arm64 Apple M1 Max
    Memory: 74.09 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 5.8 - /bin/zsh
  Binaries:
    Node: 18.7.0 - /opt/homebrew/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.19 - /opt/homebrew/bin/yarn
    npm: 8.15.0 - /opt/homebrew/bin/npm
    Watchman: 2022.08.15.00 - /opt/homebrew/bin/watchman
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 105.0.5195.125
    Firefox: 105.0.1
    Safari: 15.1
  npmPackages:
    @novu/node: ^0.8.0 => 0.8.0
    amqp-connection-manager: ^3.8.1 => 3.8.1
    amqplib: ^0.8.0 => 0.8.0
    amqplib-tutorials:  0.0.1
  npmGlobalPackages:
    @aws-amplify/cli: 9.0.0
    @nestjs/cli: 8.2.6
    aws-cdk: 2.43.0
    eas-cli: 0.54.1
    envinfo: 7.8.1
    expo-cli: 5.4.6
    n: 8.0.0
    netlify-cli: 8.0.15
    npm: 8.15.0
    nx: 13.4.5
    plop: 3.0.5
    react-devtools: 4.24.3
    ts-node: 10.8.1
    typeorm: 0.3.6
    typescript: 4.5.2
    vercel: 28.2.2

Describe the bug

Hi all

We are experiencing session issues with our mobile apps, when our users are offline and the id/access token has expired.

id + access token have expiration of 60min and refresh token of 90 days

We would be interested how others are handling this situation:

When a user is offline / has no internet connection and resumes the app after the id + access token have expired, the session is dropped and the user is logged out
How can we avoid this behavior as it is a big pain point?

Would appreciate any feedback

Expected behavior

While user is offline and id + access tokens have expired:

const session = Auth.currentSession()

Reproduction steps

Go into airplaine mode
Close app
Wait until tokens have expired
Open app

Code Snippet

const session = Auth.currentSession()

Log output

// Put your logs below this line

aws-exports.js

No response

Manual configuration

No response

Additional configuration

No response

Mobile Device

No response

Mobile Operating System

No response

Mobile Browser

No response

Mobile Browser Version

No response

Additional information and screenshots

No response

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created 2 years ago
Reactions: 4
Comments: 15 (6 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Hi @itsramiel this is something I think we want to/should support so we have marked this as a bug and the team is going to look into this further. I don’t currently have a timeline on the fix but any updates should be posted here.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention

tannerabread on Mar 28, 2023

Hey @tannerabread. We are experiencing this in our react native app. The issue precisely is that if a user opens the app while offline and his access token has expired, then Auth.currentAuthenticatedUser() throws The user is not authenticated. If the user then came online Auth.currentAuthenticatedUser() will return correctly.

This is an issue because users will think they are logged out but in reality they are not. All they need to do is turn on their wifi and then they are logged in again.

You can reproduce it by creating a simple react native app with aws amplify setup and log in with a user. You can then turn off wifi, change time from settings to after the period of the access token, and then try to call Auth.currentAuthenticatedUser() and you will see The user is not authenticated being thrown. In fact I do not think you need a react native app specifically, but that’s our use case.

There is a merged fix in amplify-flutter to handle when a user is offline. Can we have something similar here?

itsramiel on Mar 22, 2023

Hi, excuse the delay on this issue. I have just reproduced it with the steps provided and will bring it up with the rest of the team soon to see if this is something we will fix on our side.

tannerabread on Mar 22, 2023