Django 4.1 - Difficulties with Django Channels and WebSocket Authentication Handling
I'm following best practices but I'm converting an old project and I'm working on a personal project and I've been banging my head against this for hours... This might be a silly question, but I'm currently working on a Django 4.1 project that uses Django Channels for real-time features, and I'm experiencing issues with authenticating users over WebSocket connections. My WebSocket consumer is supposed to check if the user is authenticated before allowing them to join a chat room, but it seems that the authentication fails even when the user is logged in. In my `ChatConsumer`, I'm trying to retrieve the user from the session like this: ```python class ChatConsumer(AsyncWebsocketConsumer): async def connect(self): self.user = self.scope['user'] if self.user.is_authenticated: await self.accept() else: await self.close() ``` However, when I check `self.scope['user']`, it appears to be an `AnonymousUser` even though I'm using a session-based authentication method in my Django settings. I have the following middleware configured in `settings.py`: ```python MIDDLEWARE = [ 'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware', 'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware', 'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware', 'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware', 'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware', 'channels.middleware.AuthMiddlewareStack', # Added for Channels ] ``` I've also confirmed that the user is logged in when making regular HTTP requests, as `request.user` returns the correct user object. To test my WebSocket connection, I'm using the following JavaScript code: ```javascript const socket = new WebSocket('ws://localhost:8000/ws/chat/room_name/'); socket.onopen = function() { console.log('Connected to chat room.'); }; socket.onmessage = function(event) { console.log('Message from server: ', event.data); }; socket.onclose = function() { console.log('Disconnected from chat room.'); }; ``` The WebSocket connection is established, but the user is not authenticated. I've tried adding the `AuthMiddlewareStack` in the routing configuration, but it doesn't seem to solve the question. Am I missing something in my configuration, or is there a better way to handle user authentication in Django Channels? Any help would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger web app I'm building. Has anyone else encountered this? How would you solve this? What's the correct way to implement this? The stack includes Python and several other technologies. This is part of a larger web app I'm building. I'm open to any suggestions.