Intermittent Login Failures, Session Inconsistencies, and Token Handling Issues on a Restaurant Menu Website Using Auth0

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I am currently using Auth0 to manage authentication for a restaurant menu website that allows users to create accounts, save favorite items, track previous orders, and access personalized promotions. While the basic login and signup flows work in most cases, we have been experiencing intermittent login failures and inconsistent session behavior across different browsers and devices. Some users report being logged out unexpectedly, while others experience repeated redirect loops between our website and the Auth0 hosted login page. These issues are difficult to reproduce consistently in development, but they occur frequently enough in production to negatively affect user experience and trust.

One of the primary challenges involves redirect handling and callback configuration. We have configured allowed callback URLs, logout URLs, and web origins within the Auth0 dashboard, but there are cases where users are redirected back to the login page even after successful authentication. In certain scenarios, the ID token and access token appear to be generated correctly, yet the application fails to recognize the session and prompts the user to log in again. I suspect this may be related to incorrect state validation, mismatched audience configuration, or improper handling of silent authentication, but I would appreciate clarification on common causes of redirect loops in production environments.

Session persistence and token storage present additional complications. The website is a modern web application that uses short-lived access tokens with refresh token rotation enabled. While this setup aligns with security best practices, we are noticing situations where refresh tokens fail or expire unexpectedly, leading to forced logouts. On some mobile browsers, particularly when users switch tabs or background the app, sessions do not resume properly. I am unsure whether this behavior is caused by browser storage limitations, third-party cookie restrictions, or misconfiguration of token renewal logic. Best practices for maintaining stable sessions without compromising security would be extremely helpful.

Social login integration has introduced another layer of complexity. We allow users to authenticate using third-party identity providers in addition to traditional email/password login. However, certain social login flows occasionally fail during the callback process, especially when users cancel midway or switch devices during authentication. In these cases, partial user records may be created in Auth0 without fully completing the login process, resulting in duplicate accounts or inconsistent metadata. I am looking for guidance on handling edge cases in social login flows and preventing incomplete or orphaned user entries.

Another issue relates to role-based access and user metadata. The website distinguishes between regular users and administrative users who manage menu updates and promotions. We use custom claims in ID tokens to determine access levels, but there are instances where role changes made in the Auth0 dashboard are not immediately reflected in issued tokens. This results in users retaining outdated permissions until they log out and log back in. Understanding how to properly propagate role updates and invalidate old tokens in a secure and scalable way would be extremely beneficial.

Overall, I am seeking advice from the Auth0 community on diagnosing and resolving login instability in a production web environment. Specifically, I would appreciate recommendations regarding redirect configuration, token lifecycle management, refresh token rotation, social login edge case handling, and role-based access control best practices. Ensuring a smooth and secure login experience is critical for maintaining user trust and engagement on our restaurant menu platform, and any insights from developers who have addressed similar issues would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for long post

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Is there anyone who can guide me please?

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Hi @joeroot.pk80

May I ask what type of application are you running? SPA, Regular and do you use any native SDKs for the mobile browsers?

The issues you’re facing—redirect loops, session instability, social login failures, and stale roles—might be symptoms of a few underlying architectural mismatches and common production environment pitfalls. They are almost certainly not random bugs but predictable outcomes of interactions between your application logic, Auth0’s security features, and browser security policies. To provide some context on these issues that you are experiencing:

  1. Redirect Loops are often caused by misconfigured localhost or other URLs in production settings or silent authentication failures due to browser privacy features (like third-party cookie blocking). 2.
  2. Session Instability & Refresh Token Failures are classic signs of a race condition with Refresh Token Rotation in a highly concurrent SPA/mobile environment.
  3. Social Login Issues point to a need for robust Account Linking and a strategy for handling incomplete signups.
  4. Stale RBAC Roles are an expected consequence of JWT immutability and must be handled with a short token lifespan and, for immediate effect, a server-side event-driven approach.

Now, to provide some possible solutions addressing these mentioned issues:

  1. Redirect Loops and Inconsistent Login State - One solution for this would be to switch to Refresh Tokens if you were using silent authentication within your application, however, you already mentioned that you do use short-lived access tokens with refresh token rotation enabled. Make sure these sessions are being prolonged by using the refresh tokens and that you application is not attempting to silently authenticate the users. I would recommend also sanitizing the production URLs within the Auth0 Dashboard but also the ones configured inside your applications. On this note, using a custom domain should help mitigate the issue if you do not have one put in place.
  2. Session Persistence and Refresh Token Failures - As I mentioned before, this might indicate that there is a race condition triggered within you application where multiple refresh tokens are issued and the whole family gets invalidated. You can try increasing the overlap period or disabling refresh token rotation to see if this behaviour persists, otherwise, I would recommend implementing a lock mechanism in your application’s token management layer which ensures that only one token refresh operation can be in-flight at any given time.
  3. Social Login Failures and Orphaned Accounts - For these unexpected accounts which are creating due to the user breaking the expected flow, I would recommend a clean-up strategy where you delete these types of users either via a PostLogin Action or server-side job.
  4. Stale RBAC Roles and User Metadata - This is expected behavior and a fundamental property of JWTs: they are immutable, self-contained snapshots of the user’s state at the time of issuance . Once an ID token or Access Token is signed and issued, it cannot be changed. Changing a user’s role in the Auth0 Dashboard will not affect tokens that are already out in the wild. Since you are already using short-lived Access, your application can handle this once the token gets Refreshed, otherwise, you will need to either force re-authentication/force logout on metadata update/silently authenticate the user to issue a new set of tokens.

There are a lot of issues to address here and without more information about the application configuration itself, Auth0 settings and log events of these issues, it can be hard to pinpoint or troubleshoot them directly.

If I can help with any other questions or issues on the matter, let me know!

Kind Regards,
Nik