I am guessing some more because I didn't trace the code but I think auth.user eventually gets set in login_bare without setting auth.user_id but then do standalone apps actually login? I could only find 3 places where self.user_id is used in the class, the 2 places in the if else and as a test to see which of the nav bars (login or logout) should be placed at the top of the page. I could not see anywhere else that auth.user_id is set outside the class.
I guess bottom line is Alexei has a solution. :-)
