Fatal error: Call to a member function user() on boolean

Question

I have to use loggedIn user data in view therefore creating a variable AUTH_USER in AppController in beforeRender function.

82     public function beforeRender(Event $event)
83     {
84          if ($this->Auth->user('id')) {
85          $this->set('AUTH_USER', $this->Auth->user());
86          }
87          ...
88          ...
89     }

Whenever there is an error, instead of displaying actual error it shows following error without style formatting

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to a member function user() on boolean in /path_to_app/src/Controller/AppController.php:84 
Stack trace: #0 /path_to_app/src/Controller/ErrorController.php(54): App\Controller\AppController->beforeRender(Object(Cake\Event\Event)) 
#1 /path_to_app/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Event/EventManager.php(422): App\Controller\ErrorController->beforeRender(Object(Cake\Event\Event)) 
#2 /path_to_app/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Event/EventManager.php(391): Cake\Event\EventManager->_callListener(Array, Object(Cake\Event\Event)) 
#3 /path_to_app/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Event/EventDispatcherTrait.php(78): Cake\Event\EventManager->dispatch(Object(Cake\Event\Event)) 
#4 /path_to_app/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/ in /path_to_app/src/Controller/AppController.php on line 84

Removing line 84 - 86 displays actual error

Edit 2

code for Auth component load in AppController initialize()

I have written the following code to load the AUTH component.

$this->loadComponent('Auth', [
   'authenticate' => [
      'Form' => [
         'userModel' => 'Admins',
            'fields' => [
               'username' => 'email', 
               'password' => 'password'
             ]
         ]
      ],
      'loginAction' => [
         'controller' => 'Admins',
         'action' => 'index'
      ],
      'loginRedirect' => [
         'controller' => 'Admins',
         'action' => 'contentList'
       ],
      'authError' => 'Did you really think you are allowed to see that?',
      'logoutAction' => [
         'controller' => 'Pages',
         'action' => 'home'
       ]
]);

Answer 1

I had the same error and if you add this line to beforeRender() it should work:

$this->loadComponent('Auth');

It could be that you are not properly initializing the component in the initialize() function.

Answer 2

You haven't given a proper ID to the if statement to check. You have to send the logged in user's ID through the function's parameters and then check for that ID in the if statement.