POST data gets "lost" when responding with HTTP status code in Express 3.4.8

Question

I am using Express 3.4.8 and have set up a handler for all my routes, checking for privileges.
Let's assume that the credentials (which are sent with every request) are invalid. I'd like to respond with a status of 403 in that case.

app.all('*',function(req,res,next){

  //req.body contains an object `credentials`

  res.send(403);
});

If i do so, req.body will be an empty object. Note that the request is made from an Angular app and is definetly correct.

As soon as i omit the status, everything will work fine. Like that:

app.all('*',function(req,res,next){
  res.send('Im not a status code');
});

In that case, req.body will contain the credentials as expected. Remember, the original request is made externally and never touched.

Can anyone reproduce this and has a tip on how to fix it?

---

This is slowly corroding my inward peace. the whole process makes absolutely no sense at all. If i do a console.log(req.body) at the very beginning of the logic, thus before the authCheck decides whether or not the credentials are valid, it still fails.

Answer 1

I still have no idea why this failed in this specific way, but yet i found a solution.

The "failure" was caused by the fact that CORS will cause Angular to send an OPTIONS request.

See: AngularJS performs an OPTIONS HTTP request for a cross-origin resource

I respond with a simple status 200 messsage for each OPTIONS request, after that, the original POST will pass as expected.