Shiny user_dirs only working if I add a trailing slash to the username

[mark.frank]

I am deploying a new, updated Shiny Server under RHEL 8 to replace our old one running under CentOS 7.

Old server is running shiny-server-1.5.14.948-1.x86_64
New server is running shiny-server-1.5.21.1012-1.x86_64

My shiny-server.conf file is identical between the two servers and we are using user_dirs.

On the old server, if I browse to http://servername:3838/username it automatically redirects to http://servername:3838/username/ meaning it adds the trailing slash and the list of apps in the users' ~/ShinyApps folder displays just fine.

On the new server, if I browse to http://servername:3838/username it does NOT automatically adds the trailing slash and instead it just throws a "Page not found" error. If I manually add the trailing slash http://servername:3838/username/ the page displays just fine.

Is there a way to fix this and have it redirect if the trailing slash is omitted? Here is my shiny-server.conf file:

Instruct Shiny Server to run applications as the user "shiny"

run_as shiny;

Instruct Shiny Server to run applications as the user who owns

the home directory in which the application is stored

run_as :HOME_USER:;

preserve_logs true;

Define a server that listens on port 3838

server {
listen 3838 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx;

Define a location at the base URL

location / {

# Host the directory of Shiny Apps stored in this directory
# site_dir /srv/shiny-server;

# Host the directory of Shiny Apps stored in the ~/ShinyApps directory
user_dirs;

# Log all Shiny output to files in this directory
# log_dir /var/log/shiny-server;

log_file_mode 0644;

# When a user visits the base URL rather than a particular application,
# an index of the applications available in this directory will be shown.
directory_index on;

}
}