Laravel 4, Token mismatch exception in filters.php using CSRF

Question

I have a problem since 1 week more or less and when I leave open the page of my application but without using it for maybe 4 or 5 hours and return to make a request (a click on a button to load something or things like that) everytime in the console display this:

{
"error":{
    "type":"Illuminate\\Session\\TokenMismatchException",
    "message":"",
    "file":"C:\\xampp182\\htdocs\\mysite\\app\\filters.php",
    "line":97
    }
}

I'm using CSRF protección in my POST request passing for the ajax request this configuration

$.ajax({
        url: '/path/to/file',
        type: 'default GET (Other values: POST)',
        dataType: 'default: Intelligent Guess (Other values: xml, json, script, or html)',
        data: {param1: 'value1'},
        headers: {
            'X-CSRF-Token': $('meta[name="csrf-token"]').attr('content')
        },
    })
    .done(function() {
        console.log("success");
    })
    .fail(function() {
        console.log("error");
    })
    .always(function() {
        console.log("complete");
    });

This is my filters.php

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| CSRF Protection Filter
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| The CSRF filter is responsible for protecting your application against
| cross-site request forgery attacks. If this special token in a user
| session does not match the one given in this request, we'll bail.
|
*/

Route::filter('csrf', function($route, $request)
{
    if (strtoupper($request->getMethod()) === 'GET')
    {
        return; // get requests are not CSRF protected
    }

    $token = Request::ajax() ? Request::header('x-csrf-token') : Input::get('_token');

    if (Session::token() != $token)
    {
        throw new Illuminate\Session\TokenMismatchException; //Line 97
    }
});

Edit

I see the problem, the Session::token() and $token are different but is there a way to regenerate or put the both tokens with the same value?

Answer 1

This is how CSRF protection works. After session lifetime it generates new token. No one normally will fill in the form for 4-5 hours. If you do it just for testing on your localhost you may change lifetime in app/config/session to higher value and it should work.

Otherwise you may probably change:

throw new Illuminate\Session\TokenMismatchException; //Line 97

into something like that

 return Redirect:back()->withInput(Input::except('token'))->with('_token',Session::token());

Answer 2

I had this problem on login also. From time to time this exception occurred so I stop and tried to reproduce it. I succeed by doing this:

First I load the login page.

Then I deleted the cookies.

Then, without reloading the login page, I entered username and password and tried to login.

Because session was deleted (when I deleted the cookies), it was normal that this code was not going to pass and it will throw the TokenMismatchException.

Route::filter('csrf', function() {
    if ( Session::getToken() != Input::get('_token')) {
        throw new Illuminate\Session\TokenMismatchException;
    }
});

So, what I've done to solve my problem was to add a redirect to login page with a message to inform the user that the session might expired.

Route::filter('csrf', function() {
    if ( Session::getToken() != Input::get('_token')) {
        return Redirect::to('/admin/login')->with('warning', 'Your session has expired. Please try logging in again.');
    }
});

Thus, after page reloading, a new session is created and the problem is solved.

Answer 3

Simply place the code below into your filters:

if (Session::token() !== $token)
{
    return Redirect::back()->withInput(Input::except('_token'));
}