What’s the best way to clear guest attributes when a user logs out of our portal but remains on the page? We are deploying the Genesys Cloud Web Messaging widget with custom attributes for authenticated users. The goal is to pass the user’s ID and tier to the conversation metadata so our bot can personalize the greeting. However, the attributes seem to stick around even after we attempt to reset them.
We are using the standard Web Messaging SDK embedded in our React app. When a user authenticates, we set the attributes like this:
window._gcWidget.setGuestAttributes({
userId: '12345',
customerTier: 'Gold'
});
This works fine. The conversation starts, and the data is visible in the Open Messaging payload. The problem occurs during logout. We call the following to clear the state:
window._gcWidget.clearGuestAttributes();
window._gcWidget.resetSession();
Despite this, if the user immediately initiates a new chat, the old userId is still attached. We have verified this by checking the inbound webhook payload in our backend logs. The attributes object still contains the previous user’s data. We are seeing a 200 OK response from the widget SDK methods, suggesting the calls succeeded, but the behavior is incorrect.
Here is our environment setup:
- SDK Version: 2.4.1
- Genesys Cloud Region: EU (Berlin)
- Browser: Chrome 120+, Firefox 115+
- Auth Method: OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials for backend, Widget token for frontend
We suspect this might be related to how the widget caches the session locally or how the Guest API handles the state transition. Has anyone successfully implemented a hard reset of guest attributes without a full page reload? We need a solution that keeps the SPA experience intact. Any code examples or SDK method nuances would be appreciated. We are currently debugging this in the Berlin timezone, so late-night responses are preferred if possible.
TL;DR: Use genesyscloud.messaging.reset() to clear state.
Check your logout sequence. I hit this 400-like behavior (state persistence) during my Terraform migration when I assumed the widget auto-cleared on page refresh. It doesn’t.
The SDK keeps the guest ID in local storage by default. You must explicitly reset it. Here is the working snippet:
// Import the SDK instance
import { messaging } from '@genesyscloud/web-messaging-sdk';
// Call reset to clear guest attributes and session
messaging.reset().then(() => {
console.log('Guest attributes cleared');
}).catch((err) => {
console.error('Reset failed', err);
});
If you are using the pure HTML embed script, access the global genesyscloud object instead. Do not rely on window.location.reload() alone. The state drift issue is real here, similar to how Terraform state can drift if not explicitly refreshed. I had to add this reset call to my logout handler to stop old user IDs from leaking into new conversations.
This has the hallmarks of a classic session boundary error. The suggestion above mentions reset(), but you are likely hitting a race condition if you do not clear the underlying storage before the widget re-initializes. In my Twilio-to-GC migration, I found that genesyscloud.messaging.reset() is asynchronous. If you immediately call init() or allow the page to reload before the local storage key genesys-cloud-messaging-guest-id is purged, the old guest ID persists into the new session.
You must explicitly clear the storage key or wait for the reset promise. See KB-8821: Guest ID Persistence.
// Ensure storage is cleared before reset completes
if (window.localStorage) {
window.localStorage.removeItem('genesys-cloud-messaging-guest-id');
}
// Await the reset to prevent race conditions
await genesyscloud.messaging.reset();
Also verify your Architect flow. If you are using the guest ID in a Data Action, ensure you are not caching the value in a flow-level variable that outlives the conversation reset.