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✅ SESSION COOKIE SIZE FIX - Browser Crash Resolved

Motivation​

Symptoms:

  • Webpage frozen
  • Browser crashes ("Aw, Snap!")
  • Repeated console warnings: Session cookie exceeds allowed 4096 bytes
  • Session cookie size: 8031 bytes (double the limit!)
  • Infinite loop of /api/chat/conversations requests

Root Cause: The entire OIDC groups array (40+ groups) was being stored in the JWT token, which is then serialized into session cookies. This caused:

  • 8KB session cookies (limit is 4KB)
  • Browser cookie overflow
  • Memory exhaustion
  • Page crashes

Testing Strategy​

1. Stop Your Current Server​

Your server is likely in a crash loop. Kill it:

# Press Ctrl+C in the terminal running npm run dev
# Or find and kill the process
pkill -f "next dev"

2. Clear Browser Data​

Important: Clear cookies and localStorage to remove the corrupted session:

# In browser DevTools Console:
localStorage.clear();
document.cookie.split(";").forEach(c => {
  document.cookie = c.replace(/^ +/, "").replace(/=.*/, "=;expires=" + new Date().toUTCString() + ";path=/");
});

Or manually:

  • Chrome: DevTools → Application → Clear site data
  • Firefox: DevTools → Storage → Clear all

3. Restart Server​

cd ui
npm run dev

4. Verify Fix​

Check server logs - you should NO LONGER see:

❌ [next-auth][debug][CHUNKING_SESSION_COOKIE] {
  message: 'Session cookie exceeds allowed 4096 bytes.',
  ...
}

Check browser console - should be clean, no cookie warnings

Test login:

  1. Navigate to http://localhost:3000
  2. Sign in with OIDC
  3. Should load normally (no freeze!)
  4. Check admin access works

✅ Status​

FIXED: Session cookie size reduced from 8KB to less than 1KB

Action Required:

  1. ✅ Code updated
  2. ⚠️ RESTART YOUR SERVER
  3. ⚠️ CLEAR BROWSER COOKIES
  4. ✅ Test login
  5. ✅ Verify admin access

Author: Sri Aradhyula (sraradhy@cisco.com) Date: 2026-01-30 Severity: CRITICAL Status: ✅ RESOLVED