How to logout my application when I closed the window?

Question

In my chat application i am having the logout button and it works fine.

Now I need to logout the application when I closed the browser window also..How can I achieve this...

Thanks in advance...

Solution 1

Add your logout code to the on onunload event.

window.onunload = function () {
    //logout code here...
}

In JQuery you can use the .unload() function. Remember that you don't have much time so you may send the Ajax request but the result may not reach the client.

Another trick is to open a small new window and handle the logout there.

window.open("logout url","log out","height=10,width=10,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,titlebar=no,toolbar=no",true);

If you want to disable closing the window (or at least warn the user), you can use this code:

window.onbeforeunload = function(event) {
    //if you return anything but null, it will warn the user.
    //optionally you can return a string which most browsers show to the user as the warning message.
    return true;
}

Another trick is to keep pinging the client every few seconds. If no reply comes back, assume the user has closed the window, browser has crashed or there is a network issue that ended the chat session anyway. On the client side, if you don't receive this ping package, you can assume that network connection or server has a problem and you can show the logout warning (and optionally let the user login again).

Solution 2

There is no exact way to do this with the clientside. There is no event that is fired when the page is exited. It should be done with the Session End event on the server.

You can try to use onbeforeunload or unload, but race conditions will prevent that from happening. AND they do not fire for browsers crashing, lost internet connection, etc.

Solution 3

I dealt with this issue recently in my angularJS app - The main issue was that I don't want to log you out if you refresh, but I do want to if you close the tab.. Ajax requests with onbeforeunload/onunload aren't guaranteed to wait for response, so here is my solution:

I set a sessionStorage cookie on login that is just a bool - set to true when I get login response

sessionStorage.setItem('activeSession', 'true');

Obviously, on logout, we set this flag to false

Either when controller initializes or using window.onload (in my app.js file) - I check for this activeSession bool.. if it is false, I have this small if statement - where if conditions are met I call my logout method ONLOAD instead of onunload

   var activeSession = sessionStorage.activeSession;
    if (sessionStorage.loggedOutOnAuth) {
        console.log('Logged out due to expiry already')
    }
    else if (!activeSession) {
        sessionStorage.loggedOutOnAuth = true;
        _logout()
    }

Basically, the "loggedOutAuth" bool let's me know that I just expired you on page load due to the absence of an activeSession in sessionStorage so you don't get stuck in a loop

This was a great solution for me since I didn't want to implement a heartbeat/websocket

Solution 4

Some websites are using the following script to detect whether window is closed or not.

if(window.screenTop > 10000)
alert("Window is closed");
else
alert("Window stillOpen");

You need to add the correct action instead of alert()

also take a look HERE - I think this is somthing you need to detect the window closing

Solution 5

I got the Solution by,

window.onunload = function () {
    //logout code here...
}

Thanks for all who supported me...

View more solutions

Comments

[epascarello]

BUT it is impossible to call the server and guarantee to make it to the server.

[AlexStack]

then you can open a small popup window to take care of it or use window.onbeforeunload event handler to warn the user.

[epascarello]

pop up window will be blocked by a pop up blocker, plus it still misses all the edge cases.

[Fisher Man]

This helped me and got the solution...Thanks a lot ALEXSTACK.

[AlexStack]

You are welcome. If you are using the popup window, you can do the logout process in that page behind the scene while warning the user. Then close the window when the logout is done. Maybe this goes so quick that the user will not even see the warning message :)

[comeGetSome]

WATCHOUT: same is executed on page-reload ( F5 ) which you for sure dont want to log your out. For those who dont want to open a popup nor want to use XHR request, there are other possibilities: point either <image/>, <script/> or <iframe/> tag to the logout URL.

[Giuseppe Garassino]

This should be posted as a comment

[Nayeem]

Did you find any issues sofar with this solution?

[DrNio]

did you still use onbeforeunload , unload to set the sessionsStorage variable to false ?

[Maximilian Fixl]

Good workaround! How do you handle a rememberMe option in that case? Would add the activeSession in the localStorage with a timestamp with the same scope as rememberMe keeps a token valid?

[CyberAbhay]

but how make that value false on browser is closed ?

[CyberAbhay]

I did implemented this solutions it works fine for single tab but if i tried to open app in new tab then there sessionStorage not available and use have to login again.

[CyberAbhay]

I need to logout the user if the tab is closed or refreshed. It should only do force logout on browser is closed.any suggestions

[jagadeesh puthukkudi]

This may help on multiple tab open issues [blog.guya.net/2015/06/12/…

[Ihor Khomiak]

This solution will logout you also when you refresh the page.

[Sandip Subedi]

But what if there are multiple tabs open and you don't want to logout when 1 tab is closed?

[Gaurav Patil]

Best solution, it save my day, Thank you so much