What should I do when users log out?

Question

I am setting Mixpanel up, and I found out that if I log in with a user (and identify that user), log out and then re-register as a new user, the new user's details overwrite the previously logged in user (presumably when I call alias). How can I tell mixpanel that a user has logged out and to reset the identity token (make it anonymous again)?

Answer 1

It was released on Mixpanel Javascript version v2.8.0 the mixpanel.reset() function, so that's officially what should be called on user logout. See https://github.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-js/issues/67 .

Answer 2

I ran into the same issue, and after some sleuthing I discovered that you can manually clear the mixpanel cookies with mixpanel.cookie.clear().

However, you need to make sure that the mixpanel library has loaded, so I ended up putting it in a stupid timeout:

var id = window.setInterval(function() {
  if (mixpanel.cookie && mixpanel.cookie.clear) {
    mixpanel.cookie.clear();
    window.clearInterval(id);
  }
}, 50);

And then, since I didn't want to do this on every page, I added a query string parameter onto my logout redirect URL. So after visiting /logout it would redirect them to /home?_ref=logout, at which point I would clear the mixpanel cookie only if that query string parameter existed.

It was pretty annoying, but it seemed to work.

Answer 3

for android on logout you can use this MixpanelAPI.reset()

Answer 4

1. Call clearSuperProperties() to remove any Super Properties in local storage.
2. Set new_distinct_id = UUID.randomUUID().toString());
3. Call .identify(new_distinct_id) and .getPeople().identify(new_distinct_id)

This should wipe the device clean for a fresh user that can then register and be aliased to another distinct_id.

The best way to do this with javascript is to delete the cookie. The name of the cookie is mp_{mixpanel_token_id}_mixpanel