Askless throwing errors

[DannyFilo]

Hello, when running your original code Askless is runnig errors all the time (when running npm server + 2 flutter clients connected).

Additionally after loggin-in loggin-out on the flutter client ... messages "from today" dissapear and are not showing on both clients (although chat works)

No idea how to fix it. Would you also be so kind and add small doc how to change column names in database ?
Seems your code is havy "column name" dependend (all 3 packages npm server, askless library and flutter code).
For example changing "userId" in database to "Id" .. seems to be really heavy work.

Flutter app side errors

I/flutter (12514): listenToTypingSubscription CALLED
I/flutter (12514): Askless [ERROR]: (waitForAuthentication) Ops, this shouldn't happen, the App says it is authenticated but the server says is not authenticated
I/chatty (12514): uid=10173(com.wisetap.flutter_chat_app_with_mysql.flutter_chat_app_with_mysql) 1.ui identical 1 line
I/flutter (12514): Askless [ERROR]: (waitForAuthentication) Ops, this shouldn't happen, the App says it is authenticated but the server says is not authenticated

NPM server errors

onReceived MESSAGES:
notifyMessagesWereUpdated: {"receivedAt":"2023-10-12T11:41:26.274Z","senderHasOutdatedVersion":true}
info: onClientReceiveOutputWithSuccess being ignored for route messages-were-updated (listen)
onReceived messages callback: messages
senderReceivedMessagesUpdates is empty/null
warning: respondWithError: the client "(no ID)" could not perform the operation on (READ)askless-internal/call/receive, result is PENDING_AUTHENTICATION, authentication is "pending", did you handle the onUnauthenticatedListener on the App side? (initAndConnect)
error: listen: the error is "PENDING_AUTHENTICATION", calling stopListening...
{"code":"PENDING_AUTHENTICATION","description":"Could not perform the operation on (LISTEN) "askless-internal/call/receive" because authentication is required"}
error: onClientStartsListening not called
[READ/LISTEN] conversations-with-unreceived-messages has been called by the client
1": conversations-with-unreceived-messages" sending -> []
info: onClientReceiveOutputWithSuccess being ignored for route conversations-with-unreceived-messages (listen)
info: onClientReceiveOutputWithSuccess being ignored for route askless-internal/call/receive (listen)

[RodrigoBertotti]

Hello! Thank you for opening the issue

I will follow your suggestion of keeping the messages after logging in again after a logout, I will do it and I let you know here

To rename the field userId in the db to id you have two ways of doing it:

• going to nodejs_websocket_backend/src/domain/entity/user-entity.ts, right click on userId in your editor and refactor it to id to change in the db and in the node.js backend (its important to refactor all userId fields in the nodejs backend)

• or an easier way is to in the user-entity.ts and replace the code with: (no need to refactor the variable userId)

  @PrimaryGeneratedColumn({unsigned: true, name: 'id'}) // add name field here with your custom column name
  userId: number
  

I will also check the message Ops, this shouldn't happen, the App says it is authenticated but the server says is not authenticated and fix it, I will let you here in this issue as well

thanks for reaching out, any questions let me know

[DannyFilo]

Many thanks for such a quick reply !
It's a really interesting project also from learning perspective. Really appreaciate your help on the "Ops" issue.

I tried to refactor userId in user-entity.ts, but seems there's also userId used on flutter side. I will review this file by file and try to do it manually. I Wanted to experiment with existing mysql chat database we use for php website at school where colum names are totally different (simple mobile chat would be a great add-on), so I guess there might be some manual work.

Would you be so kind and tell what's the easiest way to:

1. add simple "WHERE" filter (ideally on flutter side) to select specific filtered user dataset as "Contacts" ? (now it's all<->all users)
2. force messages refresh on flutter app side chat conversations (so database status) when one user is writing via php website and another is reading via flutter app ?
3. delete conversation from the flutter app

Many thanks in advance, enjoy your day !

[RodrigoBertotti]

Sorry, in case you choose the first option, I forgot to tell you to refactor userId in the Flutter side as well

about the first item, looks like you want to show only common friends of the user (not all users), so in this case you may want to change the implementation of the files nodejs_websocket_backend/src/controllers/user-controller/user-controller.ts (user-list) and change the implementation of getAllUsers()

about the second item, it would be very tricky to implement, because Askless is not designed to work with other backends simultaneously, I would try to have Askless server in the backend and also a Express server to receive webhooks from PHP, Askless + Express in the same node.js backend, so for example, PHP would tell express that a user typed, and express would call messagesService.notifyUserIsTyping(loggedUserId, receiverUserId), but I'm not sure if this would work because I never tried using rest + websocket (askless) simultaneously, but it's something I would try

to delete the conversation from a flutter app, you can use as reference the createMessage in the node.js (nodejs_websocket_backend/src/domain/services/messages-service.ts) and sendMessage (flutter_app/lib/features/chat/data/data_sources/messages_remote_ds.dart) in the flutter side to follow a similar logic. You need to also delete the local messages in the flutter side in the flutter_app/lib/features/chat/data/data_sources/messages_local_ds.dart file as well

[DannyFilo]

Many thanks for your all priceless suggestions. I will follow them and try to implement a solution with shared mysql DB (php / flutter node.js).

Just last one ... I already have access_token I use in my Flutter prototype App. It's taken via separate login by REST API talking to our mysql. Would you suggest any easy method to skip user/password authentication in your flutter client just use access_token only I can provide as variable from my flutter prototype to your Flutter-chat module ?

1000 Thanks again !

[RodrigoBertotti]

I appreciate!

On the Flutter side, you can go to the flutter_app/lib/features/login_and_registration/data/data_sources/auth_remote_ds.dart file and change the code of the getAccessTokenWithEmailAndPassword(..) function, remove AsklessClient.instance.create(route: "login" ...) and replace it with a call to your REST API so you can verify the access token directly with your REST API. You may also want to edit useRefreshTokenToGetNewAccessToken(..) in case the access token is no longer valid

In the backend, you can change the code of the authenticate(...) function from the nodejs_websocket_backend/src/index.ts file so you can replace it with your logic to validate your accessToken

I hope it helps

[DannyFilo]

a million thanks Rodrigo ! I will have an excellent weekend experimenting with your project !

[RodrigoBertotti]

I let you know once I release an update! I wish you success in your project and an awesome weekend!

[DannyFilo]

Hello Rodrigo,

Hope all is well. So I finally managed to refactor all my columns and also have changed authorization system. After analysing your code on both flutter and node.js sides I decided to leave original token management between flutter client -> askless and node.js. It's a different form of authorisation used only for chat purpose, so I figured out that the best way will be to replace your email/password by my user_access_token. Refactored few methods and it works ! :)

I hope you don't mind to ask some simple questions - Since now I use chat as sub-module in my main app at school (users are authorized by their username and password in other module) and chat is only authorised via API user_access_token I got from the server:

1. How to disable refresh_token_access on the chat app ? or do I have to do it at all since it's only chat authorisation, maybe better to keep it ? appreciate your opinion.

2. How to keep chat_app permanently logged in ?
   I know that in your original chat_app version you're currently checking whether password and email are saved in some internal repository (Hive) and then keeping user logged in. I wonder how to adopt this to my user_access_token authorisation. To keep user permanently logged in wheh his token is valid and saved.

3. Is there any part of the code which is logging out user after certain timeout from chat_app ? I'd like to disable this part.

4. then when I log out user from the main_app ... should I also log out user on the chat level ?

5. and last one ... did you maybe figure out how to display recent messages to user when he's logging into app (in a given certain time like T=last 3 days)

ops ... apologies .... probably too much questions :)

many thanks in advance !
Danny

[RodrigoBertotti]

Hi! I'm glad you are progressing well! Congratulations

Actually, the user email and password are not saved in the user device, but the access token and refresh token are, I think the best option for you is to keep this logic as it is, and in the backend you can change the async login(email: string, password: string) function in the
flutter_chat_app_with_nodejs/nodejs_websocket_backend/src/domain/services/auth-service.ts file

So instead of validating the user email and password in the chat db, you can validate in your school db instead, but the refresh token and access token logic you can keep it as it is, in this way, the user is supposed to be permanently logged in. Also, there's no part in the app that logs out the user after a timeout, but this will happen in case the onAutoReauthenticationFails(..) function is called in the flutter_app/lib/core/data/repositories/auth_repo_impl.dart file

So in this way, by keeping the access token and refresh token logic, you don't need to log out the user in the chat app when he logs out in the main app (but you can do it if you want to), because the Chat tokens logic is different from the School tokens logic, the only thing that will be similar is the validation of the password

About the last item, you can create a new route similar to messages route, check these files, it will give you a better direction:

• flutter app: flutter_app/lib/features/chat/data/data_sources/messages_remote_ds.dart
• node.js: nodejs_websocket_backend/src/controllers/message-controller/routes/read-messages-route.ts

[DannyFilo]

1000 thanks ! I will be developing this during weekend. Hope I can manage :)

[DannyFilo]

Hello Rodrigo, hope all is well at your end. I was wondering if you've had time to look into Askless [ERROR]: (waitForAuthentication) Ops, this shouldn't happen, the App says it is authenticated but the server says is not authenticated ... Still working on my school chat, but got this error so often and to be honest I've stuck with it. No idea what's the reason and how to fix it.

[RodrigoBertotti]

Got it, thanks for letting me know, I will add this to my list and I let you know here

[RodrigoBertotti]

Hello DannyFilo, I just noticed that the error message was appearing at the wrong time, the branch dev has the adjustment, thanks again

I will let you know here when I implement the feature of keeping the messages when the user logs in after a logout

[DannyFilo]

Oh many thanks !
I planned to continue working on my mini project this weekend, so for sure I will incorporate your update.

I was wondering on 2 things:

• Is there any simple way to show online/offline user status beased on users flutter client "connected" status ? Didn't have much time to think about it, but probably another column in DB would be needed to updated on user connection. Or maybe askless allows to use some sort of database-less option to see which userId is connected :) ?

• Sometimes when I run node.js in my vscode then after some period of testing (30mins or more - on 2 simulators I see both chat clients are disconnected and trying to reconnect despite server seems to be running - then I need to manually kill and restart node.js. Probably the issue is some node.js process dying in VSCode terminal but I was wondering if you ever experienced such an issue - or maybe there's any process killer timeout built it ?

Many thanks for the update again,
Danny

[RodrigoBertotti]

Sure, there's two ways of doing, with streamConnectionChanges(...) and with addOnConnectionChangeListener(...),

It only works for showing the connection status of the local user for himself, is this what you want? Or do you want to let a remote user know whether the local user is connected or not?

I'm glad you are making progress and letting me know! Thank you for that, I'm not aware of this second issue, but I will make tests. Could you please go to the flutter_app/lib/core/data/data_sources/connection_remote_ds.dart file and set debugLogs to true temporally, and send me logs in case happen again? I appreciate it