Not emitting/receiving events with socket.io and node.js

Question

So I have this very basic socket.io setup that you have probably seen a thousand times already.

Please not that here that the files are served via apache.

server (app.js)

var io = require('socket.io').listen(8080);

io.sockets.on('connection', function(socket){ 
    socket.emit('server ready', {msg: 'hi'}) ;

    socket.on('random event', function(data) {
        console.log('received');
    })
}); 

and client

$(document).ready(function() {
    var socket = io.connect('http://127.0.0.1:8080/projectname/server/');

    socket.on('server ready', function(data){ 
        console.log('server ready!'); 
    });

    socket.emit('random event', {hurr: 'durr'});
});

However, the only output I get is

 debug - websocket writing 5:::{"name":"server ready","args":[{"msg":"hi"}]}

in the node console and nothing in the client console. Which is wrong.

I have tried the basic example from the socket.io website and it shows exactly the same behaviour. It logs the emitted data in the node console but nothing else seems to happen.

Edit: Upon further investigation, visiting the site in Firefox creates a different output in the node console:

info  - handshake authorized 178702677759276313
   debug - setting request GET /socket.io/1/xhr-polling/178702677759276313?t=1339080239192
   debug - setting poll timeout
   debug - client authorized for 
   debug - clearing poll timeout
   debug - xhr-polling writing 1::
   debug - set close timeout for client 178702677759276313
   debug - xhr-polling received data packet �17�1::/stock/server/�66�5::/stock/server/:{"name":"random event","args":[{"hurr":"durr"}]}
   debug - setting request GET /socket.io/1/xhr-polling/178702677759276313?t=1339080239263
   debug - setting poll timeout
   debug - clearing poll timeout
   debug - xhr-polling writing 5:::{"name":"server ready","args":[{"msg":"hi"}]}

This looks like the data emitted fromt he client actually reached the server. However, it didnt seem to solve the actual problem: the console.log lines and both the client and the server side arent executed. This output is from Firefox 5.0.1 where it seems to fall back to xhr.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Answer 1

If your projectname is stock, then that's your problem. Socket.IO is thinking you're using a namespace. You can see this in the xhr-polling received data packet log line. console.log is never called since you're not listening on that namespace on the server side.

You should get rid of /projectname/server from your client connect address and reference the client side library properly so you don't get a 404. Whether that's an Apache proxy issue or fixing the script src in your header depends on your current setup. I can't tell from the code you've provided.

PS: Socket.io should serve the client library at http://127.0.0.1:8080/socket.io/socket.io.js, but you might run into a cross-domain origin policy issue by referencing that asset from a document served by your apache server at port 80. Quick fix could be to serve the client lib from your apache server, which is in the socket.io-client module dist folder.