I have a peculiar redirect problem

[tleylan]

I have a node app using express as the server. I cannot get redirects to work. First it is running as a service on a Windows server and it is hosted in IIS as a pass-through site. All the endpoints work except when I attempt a redirect.

So if I use: res.send(metadata.url); I receive a valid URL. If I copy it into my browser it works.
But if I use: res.redirect(metadata.url); I receive an odd error page with

Cannot GET /videoplayback

in the body.

I've tested many things including just redirecting to a static site.

So if use: res.redirect(https://www.google.com); I don't end up at google but rather the index.html page of my service is returned.

Does anyone have any ideas at all what I might try? Thanks.

[ishan-18]

Use an absolute URL in the res.redirect() function: Instead of using metadata.url, try using the complete URL, like this: res.redirect('https://www.google.com');.

Add a trailing slash to the redirect URL: Try using res.redirect(metadata.url + '/'); to ensure the URL is properly formatted.

Check IIS configuration: Verify that IIS allows redirections and doesn't have any rules that might interfere with the Node app's redirect behavior.

Networking or Firewall Issues: There could be networking or firewall configurations affecting the communication between the Node.js app and IIS, causing unexpected responses.

[tleylan]

Thanks. There could be something up with the IIS config and that's my guess but I don't know the settings well enough to know what to change and/or if changing things would ever work. I just wanted IIS to host the app and handle the basics. BUT... the good news is I set the app up in another way permitting it to run as a Node app using just ExpressJS as the server software. So no IIS and the problem is gone.