Identity Crisis

🗓️ Date Logged: July 8, 2025
🧠 Project: Pro Dance Suite X
🏷️ Tags: next-auth, monorepo, ports, identity-crisis, misfire

Incident Report

Rolled out the same shiny app shell across multiple ports — looked cool, felt smart.
NextAuth disagreed.

It mistook every port as the same clone and kept blaming 3000 for everything.
First time? Just a classic .env misconfig. Rookie mistake.
Second time? Looked unrelated… but MongoDB + Mongoose weren’t installed on the other ports.

Without them, fetch calls inside the app shell couldn’t read anything — and NextAuth couldn’t identify anyone.

Same crisis, different root cause.

Intel Analysis

• Ports were innocent. Missing adapters made them look guilty — NextAuth couldn't tell who's who.
• NextAuth: "Wait... haven't I interrogated you before?"
• No MongoDB or Mongoose meant no identity fetch — auth was flying blind.
• The clone UI (shell) demanded backend adapter support.
• Custom port lacked its own adapter, so fallback logic kicked in — straight to 3000, where the default adapter lived.
• When NextAuth can’t resolve a custom port’s adapter, it defaults to 3000 like a confused commander returning to base.

Tactical Response

• Installed MongoDB + Mongoose on all affected apps.
• Configured NEXTAUTH_URL to reflect each port’s true identity.
• Verified session and callback URLs were pointing to the correct instances.

Outcome

• Auth works.
• Ports are no longer clones.
• I can breathe again.
• MongoDB still needy — standard protocol.

End of Log.
(Filed in /dev-logs. Level: Tantrum Tier 2.)