Session Reset undefined method `destroy' for {}:Hash

[lighthouse-import]

Imported from Lighthouse. Original ticket at: http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/6440
Created by Bruno Pinto - 2011-02-16 02:52:57 UTC

After upgrading Rails to version 2.3.11 I started receiving this error after calling reset_session:

 Backtrace:

  /home/deploy/apps/gems_bundler/ruby/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.11/lib/action_controller/request.rb:449:in 'reset_session'
  /home/deploy/apps/gems_bundler/ruby/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.11/lib/action_controller/base.rb:1244:in 'reset_session_without_flash'
  /home/deploy/apps/gems_bundler/ruby/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.11/lib/action_controller/flash.rb:159:in 'reset_session'

My first reaction was to google for a solution when I couldn't I came here and looked for related tickets and I manage to find this one:

https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/4938-patch-session-fixes-sessions-should-not-be-created-until-written-to-and-session-data-should-be-destroyed-on-session-reset

I was digging (read: trying to) for the answer and perharps for an acceptable patch but I couldn't. This was the best I could do (correct me if I'm wrong):

At first, sessions were created on each request but it was harming performance so they decided to lazy it and then ActionController::Session::AbstractStore::SessionHash was created. It extends the normal Hash class but it's extended with some methods including 'destroy' which is responsible for the error I am receiving.

For a reason I don't know, when a request is created or reseted, it's content is an empty normal Hash. It's only changed to a SessionHash farther when the method call is called from an AbstractStore instance.
I don't know why the creation still sets a normal hash to the session variable and not a SessionHash however I made a 'patch' without breaking tests and without changing this behavior.

./actionpack/lib/action_controller/session/abstract_store.rb (original):

  def session
    @env['rack.session'] ||= {}
  end

  def reset_session
    session.destroy if session
    self.session = {}
  end

./actionpack/lib/action_controller/session/abstract_store.rb (patch?):

  def session
    @env['rack.session'] ||= {}
  end

  def reset_session
    session.destroy if session && session.is_a?(ActionController::Session::AbstractStore::SessionHash)
    self.session = {}
  end

Hope it helps, and please correct me when I'm wrong.

[lighthouse-import]

Imported from Lighthouse.
Comment by Rob Di Marco - 2011-03-01 04:04:47 UTC

I submitted a pull request that includes a unit test that illustrates the problem and a patch to fix the destroy method at #198

While this is waiting to be fixed in the main tree, I have monkey patched the reset_session method like so

# file config/initializers/rails_6440_patch.rb
ActionController::Request.class_eval do
    def reset_session
      # session may be a hash, if so, we do not want to call destroy
      # fixes issue 6440
      session.destroy if session and session.respond_to?(:destroy)
      self.session = {}
    end
end

[lighthouse-import]

Imported from Lighthouse.
Comment by tiegz - 2011-04-01 17:41:27 UTC

Having the same issue, +1!

Related, it looks like you might have seen this similar issue in master and augmented your solution to match?

https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/5634-reset_session-in-action_dispatchhttprequestrb-failing-in-test-mode