Magento - Redirect on Login via Observer - magento

Question

I am trying to redirect specific users in Magento to the products.html page after logging in. Most every way I attempt to do this (setRedirect, header) results in a loop due to too many redirects.
Currently, I am trying to use an observer to setParam('return_url', "$customerRedirectUrl") as described in this rather popular post - Magento - Redirect Customer from Observer Method. The variable $customerRedirectUrl represents logic that together reliably creates the url I know I want the page to be. My relevant code looks like this.
public function redirect(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
{
$helper = Mage::helper('personal_order');
$isPersonalOrderStore = $helper->isPersonalOrderStore(null);
$session = Mage::getSingleton('customer/session');
if ($isPersonalorderStore){
if(!$session->isLoggedIn()) {
$targetUrl = Mage::getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_WEB).'customer/account/login';
Mage::app()->getResponse()->setRedirect($targetUrl);
} else {
$baseUrl = Mage::getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_WEB);
$storeName = strtolower(Mage::app()->getStore()->getName());
$storeName = str_replace(' ', '', $storeName);
$customerRedirectUrl = "$baseUrl$storeName/products.html";
$observer->getRequest()->setParam('return_url',"$customerRedirectUrl");
}
}
The important part for my purposes now is the else statement, the rest of the function works fine. However, the call to setParam results in the following error:
Fatal error: Call to a member function setParam() on a non-object...
What about the Magento - Redirect Customer from Observer Method post am I not getting (there is a good chance I'm just oblivious to something due to being a fairly new user)? The observer is laid out in the relative config file under controller_action_postdispatch and is in an observer model. What is the context for getting setParam to operate correctly?
Thanks to any and all for your help!

Answer 1

I know this post is a bit old but I see have it worked out for a module of my own.
I run the redirect on 2 different events. When the customer registers or when a customer logs in.
<customer_register_success>
<observers>
<redirectAfterRegister>
<class>businessdirectory/profile_observer</class>
<method>redirectAfterRegister</method>
</redirectAfterRegister>
</observers>
</customer_register_success>
<customer_login>
<observers>
<redirectAfterLogin>
<class>businessdirectory/profile_observer</class>
<method>redirectAfterLogin</method>
</redirectAfterLogin>
</observers>
</customer_login>
I edited this answer because after testing I realized that two separate observers are needed for the two events. The good news is that you do not need to override files or rewrite controllers.
For the customer_register_success event, all you need to do is set the success_url param to whatever you want the url to be.
For the customer_login event, you will notice in your controller customer/account/_loginPostRedirect that the redirect URLs are being set on the customer session. As you can see in the second observer method below, all you need to do is grab the customer session and set the URL. For my purposes, I set the BeforeAuthUrl and AfterAuthUrl.
public function redirectAfterRegister($observer)
{
if(Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('listing_id') || Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('directory_id')){
$_session = Mage::getSingleton('customer/session');
$action = $_session->getDirectoryAction();
if(Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('listing_id')){
$listingId = Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('listing_id');
Mage::app()->getRequest()->setParam('success_url',Mage::getUrl($action,array('listing_id'=>$listingId)));
}elseif(Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('directory_id')){
$directoryId = Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('directory_id');
Mage::app()->getRequest()->setParam('success_url',Mage::getUrl($action,array('directory_id'=>$directoryId)));
}
}
}
public function redirectAfterLogin($observer)
{
if(Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('listing_id') || Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('directory_id')){
$_session = Mage::getSingleton('customer/session');
$action = $_session->getDirectoryAction();
if(Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('listing_id')){
$listingId = Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('listing_id');
$url = Mage::getUrl($action,array('listing_id'=>$listingId));
$_session->setBeforeAuthUrl($url);
$_session->setAfterAuthUrl($url);
}elseif(Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('directory_id')){
$directoryId = Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('directory_id');
$url = Mage::getUrl($action,array('directory_id'=>$directoryId));
$_session->setBeforeAuthUrl($url);
$_session->setAfterAuthUrl($url);
}
}
}

Answer 2

When you have a problem instantiating an object with $observer->getRequest(), try using $observer->getEvent()->getFront()->getResponse() instead. I believe this differs depending on what event the observer is listening to.