[angularjs] Reloading the page gives wrong GET request with AngularJS HTML5 mode

I want to enable HTML5 mode for my app. I have put the following code for the configuration, as shown here:

return app.config(['$routeProvider','$locationProvider', function($routeProvider,$locationProvider) {

    $locationProvider.html5Mode(true);
    $locationProvider.hashPrefix = '!';

    $routeProvider.when('/', {
        templateUrl: '/views/index.html',
        controller: 'indexCtrl'
    });
    $routeProvider.when('/about',{
        templateUrl: '/views/about.html',
        controller: 'AboutCtrl'
    });

As you can see, I used the $locationProvider.html5mode and I changed all my links at the ng-href to exclude the /#/.

The Problem

At the moment, I can go to localhost:9000/ and see the index page and navigate to the other pages like localhost:9000/about.

However, the problem occurs when I refresh the localhost:9000/about page. I get the following output: Cannot GET /about

If I look at the network calls:

Request URL:localhost:9000/about
Request Method:GET

While if I first go to localhost:9000/ and then click on a button that navigates to /about I get:

Request URL:http://localhost:9000/views/about.html

Which renders the page perfectly.

How can I enable angular to get the correct page when I refresh?

Finally I got a way to to solve this issue by server side as it's more like an issue with AngularJs itself I am using 1.5 Angularjs and I got same issue on reload the page. But after adding below code in my server.js file it is save my day but it's not a proper solution or not a good way .

app.use(function(req, res, next){
  var d = res.status(404);
     if(d){
        res.sendfile('index.html');
     }
});

I had the same problem with java + angular app generated with JHipster. I solved it with Filter and list of all angular pages in properties:

application.yml:

angular-pages:
  - login
  - settings
...

AngularPageReloadFilter.java

public class AngularPageReloadFilter implements Filter {
    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        request.getRequestDispatcher("index.html").forward(request, response);
    }
}

WebConfigurer.java

private void initAngularNonRootRedirectFilter(ServletContext servletContext,
                                              EnumSet<DispatcherType> disps) {
    log.debug("Registering angular page reload Filter");
    FilterRegistration.Dynamic angularRedirectFilter =
            servletContext.addFilter("angularPageReloadFilter",
                    new AngularPageReloadFilter());
    int index = 0;
    while (env.getProperty("angular-pages[" + index + "]") != null) {
        angularRedirectFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(disps, true, "/" + env.getProperty("angular-pages[" + index + "]"));
        index++;
    }
    angularRedirectFilter.setAsyncSupported(true);
}

Hope, it will be helpful for somebody.

As others have mentioned, you need to rewrite routes on the server and set <base href="/"/>.

For gulp-connect:

npm install connect-pushstate

var gulp = require('gulp'),
  connect = require('gulp-connect'),
  pushState = require('connect-pushstate/lib/pushstate').pushState;
...
connect.server({
  ...
  middleware: function (connect, options) {
    return [
      pushState()
    ];
  }
  ...
})
....

There are few things to set up so your link in the browser will look like http://yourdomain.com/path and these are your angular config + server side

1) AngularJS

$routeProvider
  .when('/path', {
    templateUrl: 'path.html',
  });
$locationProvider
  .html5Mode(true);

2) server side, just put .htaccess inside your root folder and paste this

RewriteEngine On 
Options FollowSymLinks

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /#/$1 [L]

More interesting stuff to read about html5 mode in angularjs and the configuration required per different environment https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions#how-to-configure-your-server-to-work-with-html5mode Also this question might help you $location / switching between html5 and hashbang mode / link rewriting

Gulp + browserSync:

Install connect-history-api-fallback via npm, later config your serve gulp task

var historyApiFallback = require('connect-history-api-fallback');

gulp.task('serve', function() {
  browserSync.init({
    proxy: {
            target: 'localhost:' + port,
            middleware: [ historyApiFallback() ]
        }
  });
});

I solved same problem using modRewrite.  
AngularJS is reload page when after # changes.  
But HTML5 mode remove # and invalid the reload.  
So we should reload manually.
# install connect-modrewrite
    $ sudo npm install connect-modrewrite --save

# gulp/build.js
    'use strict';
    var gulp = require('gulp');
    var paths = gulp.paths;
    var util = require('util');
    var browserSync = require('browser-sync');
    var modRewrite  = require('connect-modrewrite');
    function browserSyncInit(baseDir, files, browser) {
        browser = browser === undefined ? 'default' : browser;
        var routes = null;
        if(baseDir === paths.src || (util.isArray(baseDir) && baseDir.indexOf(paths.src) !== -1)) {
            routes = {
                '/bower_components': 'bower_components'
            };
        }

        browserSync.instance = browserSync.init(files, {
            startPath: '/',
            server: {
            baseDir: baseDir,
            middleware: [
                modRewrite([
                    '!\\.\\w+$ /index.html [L]'
                ])
            ],
            routes: routes
            },
            browser: browser
        });
    }

We had a server redirect in Express:

app.get('*', function(req, res){
    res.render('index');
});

and we were still getting page-refresh issues, even after we added the <base href="/" />.

Solution: make sure you're using real links in you page to navigate; don't type in the route in the URL or you'll get a page-refresh. (silly mistake, I know)

:-P

I wrote a simple connect middleware for simulating url-rewriting on grunt projects. https://gist.github.com/muratcorlu/5803655

You can use like that:

module.exports = function(grunt) {
  var urlRewrite = require('grunt-connect-rewrite');

  // Project configuration.
  grunt.initConfig({
    connect: {
      server: {
        options: {
          port: 9001,
          base: 'build',
          middleware: function(connect, options) {
            // Return array of whatever middlewares you want
            return [
              // redirect all urls to index.html in build folder
              urlRewrite('build', 'index.html'),

              // Serve static files.
              connect.static(options.base),

              // Make empty directories browsable.
              connect.directory(options.base)
            ];
          }
        }
      }
    }
  })
};

I have resolved the issue by adding below code snippet into node.js file.

app.get("/*", function (request, response) {
    console.log('Unknown API called');
    response.redirect('/#' + request.url);
});

Note : when we refresh the page, it will look for the API instead of Angular page (Because of no # tag in URL.) . Using the above code, I am redirecting to the url with #

If you are in .NET stack with MVC with AngularJS, this is what you have to do to remove the '#' from url:

1. Set up your base href in your _Layout page: <head> <base href="/"> </head>

2. Then, add following in your angular app config : $locationProvider.html5Mode(true)

3. Above will remove '#' from url but page refresh won't work e.g. if you are in "yoursite.com/about" page refresh will give you a 404. This is because MVC does not know about angular routing and by MVC pattern it will look for a MVC page for 'about' which does not exists in MVC routing path. Workaround for this is to send all MVC page request to a single MVC view and you can do that by adding a route that catches all url

routes.MapRoute(
        name: "App",
        url: "{*url}",
        defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" }
    );

I had a similar problem and I solved it by:

• Using <base href="/index.html"> in the index page

• Using a catch all route middleware in my node/Express server as follows (put it after the router):

app.use(function(req, res) {
    res.sendfile(__dirname + '/Public/index.html');
});

I think that should get you up and running.

If you use an apache server, you might want to mod_rewrite your links. It is not difficult to do. Just a few changes in the config files.

All that is assuming you have html5mode enabled on angularjs. Now. note that in angular 1.2, declaring a base url is not recommended anymore actually.

I am using apache (xampp) on my dev environment and apache on the production, add:

errorDocument 404 /index.html

to the .htaccess solve for me this issue.

I have found even better Grunt plugin, that works if you have your index.html and Gruntfile.js in the same directory;

https://npmjs.org/package/grunt-connect-pushstate

After that in your Gruntfile:

 var pushState = require('grunt-connect-pushstate/lib/utils').pushState;


    connect: {
    server: {
      options: {
        port: 1337,
        base: '',
        logger: 'dev',
        hostname: '*',
        open: true,
        middleware: function (connect, options) {
          return [
            // Rewrite requests to root so they may be handled by router
            pushState(),
            // Serve static files
            connect.static(options.base)
          ];
        }
      },
    }
},

I solved to

test: {
        options: {
          port: 9000,
          base: [
            '.tmp',
            'test',
            '<%= yeoman.app %>'
          ],
         middleware: function (connect) {
                  return [
                      modRewrite(['^[^\\.]*$ /index.html [L]']),
                      connect.static('.tmp'),
                      connect().use(
                          '/bower_components',
                          connect.static('./bower_components')
                      ),
                      connect.static('app')
                  ];
              }
        }
      },

I believe your issue is with regards to the server. The angular documentation with regards to HTML5 mode (at the link in your question) states:

Server side Using this mode requires URL rewriting on server side, basically you have to rewrite all your links to entry point of your application (e.g. index.html)

I believe you'll need to setup a url rewrite from /about to /.

I have this simple solution I have been using and its works.

In App/Exceptions/Handler.php

Add this at top:

use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\NotFoundHttpException;

Then inside the render method

public function render($request, Exception $exception)
{
    .......

       if ($exception instanceof NotFoundHttpException){

        $segment = $request->segments();

        //eg. http://site.dev/member/profile
        //module => member
        // view => member.index
        //where member.index is the root of your angular app could be anything :)
        if(head($segment) != 'api' && $module = $segment[0]){
            return response(view("$module.index"), 404);
        }

        return response()->fail('not_found', $exception->getCode());

    }
    .......

     return parent::render($request, $exception);
}

Your server side code is JAVA then Follow this below steps

step 1 : Download urlrewritefilter JAR Click Here and save to build path WEB-INF/lib

step 2 : Enable HTML5 Mode $locationProvider.html5Mode(true);

step 3 : set base URL <base href="/example.com/"/>

step 4 : copy and paste to your WEB.XML

 <filter>
     <filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
 <filter-class>org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
    <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

step 5 : create file in WEN-INF/urlrewrite.xml

 <urlrewrite default-match-type="wildcard">


    <rule>
            <from>/</from>
            <to>/index.html</to>
        </rule>

    <!--Write every state dependent on your project url-->
    <rule>
            <from>/example</from>
            <to>/index.html</to>
        </rule>
    </urlrewrite>

For Grunt and Browsersync use connect-modrewrite here

var modRewrite = require('connect-modrewrite');    


browserSync: {
            dev: {
                bsFiles: {

                    src: [
                        'app/assets/css/*.css',
                        'app/*.js',
                        'app/controllers/*.js',
                        '**/*.php',
                        '*.html',
                        'app/jade/includes/*.jade',
                        'app/views/*.html',
               ],
            },
        options: {
            watchTask: true,
            debugInfo: true,
            logConnections: true,
            server: {
                baseDir :'./',
                middleware: [
                       modRewrite(['!\.html|\.js|\.jpg|\.mp4|\.mp3|\.gif|\.svg\|.css|\.png$ /index.html [L]'])
                ]
            },

            ghostMode: {
                scroll: true,
                links: true,
                forms: true
                    }
                }
            }
        },

I'm answering this question from the larger question:

When I add $locationProvider.html5Mode(true), my site will not allow pasting of urls. How do I configure my server to work when html5Mode is true?

When you have html5Mode enabled, the # character will no longer be used in your urls. The # symbol is useful because it requires no server side configuration. Without #, the url looks much nicer, but it also requires server side rewrites. Here are some examples:

For Express Rewrites with AngularJS, you can solve this with the following updates:

app.get('/*', function(req, res) {
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname + '/public/app/views/index.html'));
});

and

<!-- FOR ANGULAR ROUTING -->
<base href="/">

and

app.use('/',express.static(__dirname + '/public'));

Solution for BrowserSync and Gulp.

From https://github.com/BrowserSync/browser-sync/issues/204#issuecomment-102623643

First install connect-history-api-fallback:

npm --save-dev install connect-history-api-fallback

Then add it to your gulpfile.js:

var historyApiFallback = require('connect-history-api-fallback');

gulp.task('serve', function() {
  browserSync.init({
    server: {
      baseDir: "app",
      middleware: [ historyApiFallback() ]
    }
  });
});

IIS URL Rewrite Rule to prevent 404 error after page refresh in html5mode

For angular running under IIS on Windows

<rewrite>
  <rules>
    <rule name="AngularJS" stopProcessing="true">
      <match url=".*" />
      <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
      </conditions>
      <action type="Rewrite" url="/" />
    </rule>
  </rules>
</rewrite>

NodeJS / ExpressJS Routes to prevent 404 error after page refresh in html5mode

For angular running under Node/Express

var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var router = express.Router();

// serve angular front end files from root path
router.use('/', express.static('app', { redirect: false }));

// rewrite virtual urls to angular app to enable refreshing of internal pages
router.get('*', function (req, res, next) {
    res.sendFile(path.resolve('app/index.html'));
});

module.exports = router;

More info at: AngularJS - Enable HTML5 Mode Page Refresh Without 404 Errors in NodeJS and IIS

You need to configure your server to rewrite everything to index.html to load the app:

https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions#wiki-how-to-configure-your-server-to-work-with-html5mode