Set cookie while returning a HTTP 204 - No Content

Question

Is it possible for us to set a cookie in a response with an HTTP 204 (No content) status? I managed to set the Set-Cookie header while returning the 204 response (screenshot)

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However, my browser does not seem to react to this. My document.cookie does not yield what Set-Cookie wanted to do.

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 18 '14 at 15:10

Had this same question. Found this link: 204 No Content and cookies - Erik's Code

What I found is that all major browsers, IE (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), FF (6 - 29), Safari (5 - 7), Opera (12 - 22) on both windows and Mac, set cookies on 204 http responses.

They provide the test code and a demo page.

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

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It won't be a problem of response status but the localhost domain. You'd better to use other domains to test cookies.

Cookies on localhost with explicit domain

edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

Community

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answered Oct 20 '15 at 09:14

criticabug

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 05 '15 at 14:23

The main problem here is not the 204 response code, but the fact that your Set-Cookie directive marks the cookie as HttpOnly. This means that JavaScript cannot access this cookie; that is in fact the point of HttpOnly.

So your example should work, but you should not and cannot verify it with document.cookie. Alternatives include the web development tools / plugins in browsers ("FireBug" or similar), or testing if the cookie is returned on the server itself.

Set cookie while returning a HTTP 204 - No Content

3 Answers3