MVC: session InProc vs Stateserver - asp.net-mvc

Question

Trying to hunt this down all day.
I can get sessions to work if I used a "StateSever". Holds a session from controller to controller and on refresh. If I use "InProc" the session lives from controller to controller but on refresh it dies [null]. The timeout should not be an issue because I run it immediately.
Any help on this is appreciated. I really don't want to use stateserver...at least until I understand why this is happening.
Web config
<!--<sessionState cookieless="UseCookies" timeout="1440" mode="InProc"/>-->
<sessionState cookieless="UseCookies" timeout="1440" mode="StateServer" stateConnectionString="tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424"/>
Controllers
public ActionResult Login()
{
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Session["SessionVal"] = "Test";
return View();
}
public ActionResult LoginSuccess()
{
return View();
}
Views
#{
Layout = "";
}
<h2>Login</h2>
Go Here
2nd view
#{
Layout = null;
}
Session: #Session["SessionVal"]

Answer 1

I disabled the session state in web config. I put a DateTime in the
session The first time I run the project it displays the session. I
hit F5 and it remakes the session. I continue to hit F5 and it holds.
I enabled stateserver and do the same process but it never remakes the
session on the first refresh.
By default, sessionState is InProc mode. InProc means Session are stored in memory on the Web server. If you debug in Visual Studio, it will be your local computer's memory.
Since memory is not a persistent storage, the sessionState is clearned up by Garbage Collector as soon as your application is stopped.
The bottom line is it is by design and there is nothing you can do about it.
If you want to persistent the sessionState even after application is stopped, you need to use StateServer or SQLServer.

Answer 2

InProc literally means in process. It lives and dies with the process it's running on. IIS Express is a throwaway server - quite literally. Visual Studio starts and stops IIS Express all the time for a number of different reasons. For example, every time you stop debugging, by default, IIS Express is killed (though that can be changed on a project by project basis).
Long and short, InProc sessions are unstable even with real IIS on a server. They're that much more so on IIS Express on a local dev box. If you need or want stability of session data between requests, then you need to use something other than InProc.