In my rails app using Devise, when an unsigned in user visits root they are redirected to /users/sign_in instead of the root path?

Question

In my rails app using Devise, when an unsigned in user visits root they are redirected to /users/sign_in instead of the root path; root path works fine with signed in users. The same thing happens when I click the navbar logo which is a link with the home_path which is root, I am redirected to /users/sign_in just like when visiting root. Here are my routes:

  get 'home' => 'static_pages#home', as: "home"

  devise_for :users, :controllers => { registrations: 'registrations' }

  root 'static_pages#home'

The link that takes me to /users/sign_in instead of home_path/root_path in navbar template:

<a class="navbar-brand" href="<%= home_path %>">Brand</a>

I am using angular on the front end so this is what the path looks like when a signed in user visits root:

http://localhost:3000/home#/

If if I manually change the url to /home#/ or /home I am still redirected to users/sign_in.

I can't think of any other information to include. Is this just default behavior by Devise that I need to override? Can't seem to find anything on automatic redirecting in the docs. Thanks for the help.

Application controller:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_action :authenticate_user!
  protect_from_forgery with: :exception


  def after_sign_in_path_for(user)
    home_path
  end
end

static_pages controller:

class StaticPagesController < ApplicationController
  def home
  end
end

Answer 1

This is because the helper authenticate_user! only allows signed in users to access the web pages. You need to add skip_before_action :authenticate_user! to the statics_controller in order to let the non-loggedin users to access the home page

class StaticPagesController < ApplicationController
  skip_before_action :authenticate_user!

  def home
  end
end

Answer 2

In your ApplicationController, which StaticPagesController subclasses, you set before_action :authenticate_user! , which will be triggered for all actions, which attempts to authenticate a User.

This means, that when a User isn't signed in, the authentication check will fail, and you will be redirected to the User sign in route.