# How to tell if a session is the designer in Perspective **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Tags:** perspective, ignition80\ **Created:** [October 19, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125 "2021-10-19T17:19:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brandon1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@brandon1](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/brandon1)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/1 "2021-10-19T17:19:29Z")
In Vision I could look at the SystemFlags and tell if I was in a designer session or a client session. Is there a similar way to determine this in Perspective. The reason I ask is I want to toggle visibility conditionally on a label depending on if the perspective session is running in the designer or not. Thanks, Brandon ---
**Author:** ![bpreston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@bpreston](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bpreston)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/2 "2021-10-19T17:29:29Z")
Do you mean like the session prop device/type? ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/e/6/e6c5b3c5e52389d65d70ddfb1f05b2ee76324b82.png) ---
**Author:** ![brandon1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@brandon1](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/brandon1)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/3 "2021-10-19T17:30:00Z")
Yeah! I think that would be exactly what I want EDIT: Does anyone know why my designer right now says browser and not designer? ---
**Author:** ![Nikolai\_Wolterstorff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/35a633/32.png) [@Nikolai\_Wolterstorff](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Nikolai_Wolterstorff)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2022, 5:44pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/4 "2022-10-21T17:44:49Z")
Bump, I have this same issue. Designer says "browser". ---
**Author:** ![cmallonee](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/cmallonee/32/6416_2.png) [@cmallonee](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/cmallonee)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2022, 5:50pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/5 "2022-10-21T17:50:32Z")
What version are you using? ---
**Author:** ![witman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d2c977/32.png) [@witman](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/witman)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/6 "2022-10-21T18:02:47Z")
> [@\[IGN-6238\] Designer session type changes from designer to browser](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ign-6238-designer-session-type-changes-from-designer-to-browser/60867/2): > > Hi witman, I’ve managed to recreate this in 8.1.17. I’ll open up a bug ticket for it! ---
**Author:** ![Nikolai\_Wolterstorff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/35a633/32.png) [@Nikolai\_Wolterstorff](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Nikolai_Wolterstorff)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/7 "2022-10-21T18:11:04Z")
> [@cmallonee](#): > > What version are you using? 8.1.20 ---
**Author:** ![cmallonee](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/cmallonee/32/6416_2.png) [@cmallonee](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/cmallonee)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/8 "2022-10-21T19:45:51Z")
According to the opened issue, this is a result of the Designer incorrectly handling a Gateway restart. To prevent this: - Close all Designers before restarting your Gateway. - Close and re-open your Designer if it was open during a Gateway restart. Issue for reference: IGN-6238. ---
**Author:** ![witman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d2c977/32.png) [@witman](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/witman)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2023, 4:06pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/9 "2023-10-13T16:06:28Z")
@cmallonee, this also happens _without_ a gateway restart. I just observed it happen on Designer reconnect after being offline for a while due to VPN disconnection. `session.device.type` showed `designer` (correct) until the Designer reconnected to gateway, and then switched to `browser` (incorrect). Gateway hasn't been restarted for a month: ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/c/5/c51e922be363216caf82e6d0e07d115ee05adc4b.png) Designer was online yesterday. This doesn't seem to happen on all brief connection losses, but does happen enough to be annoying--especially when working with multiple Designers open that all need a restart to correct this. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Invie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d07c76/32.png) [@Chad\_Invie](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Chad_Invie)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 8:53pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/10 "2024-01-12T20:53:27Z")
I am a similar issue where clients show a device type of 'designer'. Any update on a fix? ---
**Author:** ![cmallonee](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/cmallonee/32/6416_2.png) [@cmallonee](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/cmallonee)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 9:34pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/11 "2024-01-12T21:34:10Z")
No, there is no estimated time to begin work on this fix. ---
**Author:** ![tashby](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/tashby/32/67562_2.png) [@tashby](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/tashby)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2024, 8:42pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/12 "2024-12-17T20:42:59Z")
Any updates on this? Just started having this same issue. We use it quite a bit to see objects that are normally invisible for placement etc. ---
**Author:** ![kyvski](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kyvski/32/85590_2.png) [@kyvski](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/kyvski)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 11:38am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-tell-if-a-session-is-the-designer-in-perspective/52125/13 "2025-06-02T11:38:53Z")
Also seeing this issue. It's helpful for preventing pushing session-based info. For example, I want a view defaulted to some values, but it keeps using my browser session information. If we can reliably check if it's the designer, we can keep those default values in place. Hopefully this can be fixed in the next ignition version.