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asp.net vb.net session issue with multiple browser tabs

I am stepping in to the middle of a very big asp.net/vb.net app project.

The app uses asp.net membership forms authentication to manage users and logins.

The app also uses sessions variables quite a bit to pass data around (no data is passed around in the query string).

The issue is that a user will pull up a record which sets a session variable for the recordid.
Then they will need to jump to another record, but keep the current record open.
So they will open a new browser tab and look up the other record which then changes the session variable.
Then they will go back to the first record and add a child record. But it gets added to the wrong parent record because of the session variable switch.

I have done a whole bunch of google'ing and reading on this, but I can't find an easy fix.
(Yes, I no there may not be an easy fix).

One option would be to prevent them from opening the site in a 2nd tab.
Or at least make sure that it starts a new session if they open in 2nd tab.
I have looked in to this, but haven't found a solution.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

SOLUTION

Dave Baldwin

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Stephan

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kevinvw1

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Actually it looks like DOM sessionStorage may help me in this situation.

sessionStorage variables appear to be unique within sessions and within tabs.

Something like this -

if (""+sessionStorage.getItem("id") == "null")
      {
            var milliseconds = new Date().getTime();
            alert ("Now setting to - " + milliseconds);
            sessionStorage.setItem("id",milliseconds);
      }
}

I just ran a test and even using "Duplicate Tab" gives me a new local id value.

So between cookies and DOM sessionStorage I think I can prevent the user from opening 2nd session (in same browser).

Thanks for your help.

Stephan

Hi Kevin,

Keep in mind that sessionStorage is not available in all browsers (doesn't work in IE7)
Here is a list of browsers that support and doesn't support sessionStorage:
http://caniuse.com/namevalue-storage

Check out the following polyfill:
https://gist.github.com/tagawa/2880273