Why does Passport.js give me a middleware error?

Question

I'm trying the workaround as described here

https://github.com/jaredhanson/passport/issues/14

app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());  
app.use(app.router);
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));

Works fine

app.use(app.router);
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session()); 

gives

DEBUG: Error: passport.initialize() middleware not in use
    at IncomingMessage.<anonymous> (/.../node_modules/passport/lib/passport/http/request.js:30:30)
    at Context.<anonymous> (/.../node_modules/passport/lib/passport/middleware/authenticate.js:92:11)
    at Context.<anonymous> (/.../core/node_modules/passport/lib/passport/context/http/actions.js:21:25)
    at Strategy.success (native)

Answer 1

You still need to app.use(app.router) after Passport. Otherwise, your route will run before any Passport code, and that's why you see the error. This should work:

app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session()); 
app.use(app.router);

Answer 2

Might help someone, I had the same issue. My app configure looked like this. This caused the error.

app.configure(function() {
  ....
app.use(app.router);    
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

});

I had to reorder as below for it to work.

app.configure(function() {
  ....
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
app.use(app.router);    
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

});

Answer 3

What worked for me was putting:

app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());

before any other app.use.