beforeSave Parse.User: after facebook sign up clears attributes.

[DrBeak1]

I've been trying to get this to work for two days and can't seem to get things correct, so I suspect there is a bug somewhere.

I'm running parse-server on heroku connected to mongoDB. All is well.

I have a beforeSave setup so that when a new user is created I assign a few variables to them before saving to the db.

When I sign up via Facebook the beforeSave function is called, but all of the user object data is stripped except for ACL, updatedAt, createdAt, and username (which is a random string because of sign up via Facebook). The users auth data does not make it through and is therefore lost. Then if I sign up again using the same Facebook account, instead of logging in, it creates a brand new user. I've found that I can fix this issue by removing the beforeSave. With no beforeSave the auth data makes it to the database and future login attempts connect me to that previously created user (instead of creating new users each time). However, even with a beforeSave that is simply:

Parse.Cloud.beforeSave(Parse.User, function(request, response) {
         for (var k in request.object.attributes) {
                console.log(k+": " + `request.object.attributes[k]);`
         }
        response.success(request.object);
});

... where I'm not doing anything but logging the incoming attributes, all attributes are stripped except for the ones mentioned above.

Anyone else seeing this issue? I'm using parse-server, heroku, mongoLab, and an iOS client.

ALSO:
If I bypass the beforeSave, successfully creating the user - any time I try to modify the users attributes, I get an error "cannot modify user <objectId>", where <objectId> is the id of the user who is supposedly logged in.

More Research (Edit: regarding this piece, had to access vars via object.attributes.email):
If I JSON.stringify(request), the vars do come into the beforeSave correctly:

{"triggerName":"beforeSave","object":{"email":"mymail@me.com","username":"mymail@me.com","firstName":"Harry","lastName":"Houdini","randomId":"61fa3xxxxxxxxxx","objectId":"gIOxxxxxxx"},"master":false,"original":{"objectId":"gIOxxxxxxx"}}

But when I try to access the vars (request.object.email), I get nothing but undefined.

And More [2016-03-07, 10:36PM]:
Last one for tonight. I can see that auth data is being returned by Facebook after login via FB. I can confirm this by modifying the PFFacebookMobileAuthenticationProvider.m file to log the data returned from:

[PFFacebookPrivateUtilities userAuthenticationDataFromAccessToken:result.token];

on line 62 of that file. I can also see that after this login, that the access_token logged here does not match the access_token stored on my user in mongoDB, so this information is never being updated in the db. Clearly this is an issue. Now, why?

[DrBeak1]

Looking through RestWrite.js I think I see where the 'cannot modify user ...' error is coming from:
https://github.com/ParsePlatform/parse-server/blob/master/src/RestWrite.js#L769
This is in alignment with what I suspect is happening, that is: when logging in via Facebook auth data is not being stored, or it is, but a session token is not being linked/saved.

[rsweny]

I saw the error "cannot modify user" as well in 2.1.3 and I still see it in 2.1.4. I do have a beforeSave trigger as well. I'm using parse-server, heroku, mongoLab, and an Android client.

[DrBeak1]

@rsweny , thanks for chiming in. I was starting to wonder if this was an iOS only problem (and hence perhaps an issue only with the ios cocoapod). pares-server 2.1.5 was just released; I haven't had a chance to test against it yet. I Plan to do so tonight.

[DrBeak1]

Same issue with parse-server 2.1.5 :(

[flovilmart]

in the beforeSave, the object should be a Parse.Object, therefore, you should access it's properties with object.get('prop');

if you just do response.success() without the request.object in it, what does it do?

[DrBeak1]

I was actually calling response.success() originally when I discovered the issue. It was only through more research that I found some threads suggesting that you had to return the object now. Neither iteration seems to make any difference.

[flovilmart]

And without the beforeSave it's all good in the database?

[DrBeak1]

@flovilmart I can see the attributes there. That was a mistake on my part. However, the sessionToken and auth data are not making it there, no. Not in either case (with or without beforeSave).

That said, as of now the auth token I see in xcode is the same as the one stored on mongoDB, but I know it's not being updated because my user object was last updated 2 days ago.

Where the beforeSave came into play was at one point having the beforeSave in place was causing a new user to be created every time I tried to log in, even when using the same fb account. There seems to be two separate issues developing here; maybe connected, but unclear at this point. Sorry I realize this may sound a bit confusing.

[flovilmart]

it is indeed very confusing, also, hard to reproduce on our side...

[DrBeak1]

In any case - I really appreciate your attention, and appreciate you supporting the server framework.

Stepping back from everything and starting with what seems to be at the root of one of the issues: After facebook auth, the user is not updated on mongoDB - that is, the new session token and facebook auth data is not sent and stored. I can confirm this as true because immediately following a successful call to logInInBackgroundWithReadPermissions I try to fetch the users details fetchInBackgroundWithBlock. This results in: Object not found. (Code: 101, Version: 1.12.0), which is either (a) object doesn't exist (which it definitely does) OR (b) invalid session token.

[flovilmart]

How is your parse-server configured for Facebook? did you set the appId there?

[DrBeak1]

I'm running locally now because I was tired of pushing builds to heroku for testing:

var api = new ParseServer({
  databaseURI: 'mongodb://pathToMyMongoDB',
  cloud: '/absolute/path/to/my/cloud/code/main.js',
  appId: 'ParseAppID',
  clientId: 'ParseClientID',
  masterKey: ParseMasterKey',
  facebookAppIds: ['MyFacebookAppId'],
  serverURL: 'http://localhost:1337/parse'
});

[flovilmart]

And I assume the fbappid is valid. When you login with Facebook, you confirm that nothing happens, no user ID returned, no session token in the result?