Manage multiple tabs (but same user) in socket.io

Question

I'm having some problems with socket.io, and I have no idea how to solve it. I've an app with a login system with socket.io to manage user interactions. Also I've an array to manage all active websocket sessions. This array stores a pair session.id => username.

Problems begin when a user opens a new tab with the same page (or a different page that uses the websocket). This cause a duplicate username entry in the array.

{id1, username} {id2, username} 

When socket sends a message to the user, it sends only to the first session id of the array, so only one tab receives the message.

I've tried to change the socket id of the new connection to match the other, but it doesn't work.

socket.id = sessionId of the other websocket; 

I think another solution is to send the message to all the open sessions, but I think it's not the best way to do that.

Thanks.

Answer 1

It sounds like you may be referring to the socket id in your question, not the session id. If you have an express session you can use the session id, which will be the same regardless of how many tabs are open as long as they use the same browser and it's not in "private" mode. Take a look at this question for how to enable sessions in socket.io.

socket.io and session?

Update: When you're saving the session id, you'll associate it with the user's nickname and the connected sockets. Then you can iterate through each socket and send the message. Something like the following:

[     {sessionId: '12345', nickname: 'timmay!', socketIds: [1, 2, 3]},     {sessionId: '23456', nickname: 'pete', socketIds: [4, 5, 6]} ] 

When another connection is established you push the new socket id into the socketIds array, and when a user disconnects you remove the id.

Another option might be to only allow one tab per user per session. You can store a single socketId and when a new socket connects for the same user, you can disconnect the original socket and use the new one instead.