I'm implementing custom JWT authentication in Django and I'm using middleware to decode the JWT token and assign request.user to the authenticated user. However, when I try to access request.user inside my view or decorator, it's not being populated, even though the middleware is correctly decoding the token and assigning it.

class JWTAuthenticationMiddleware:
    def __init__(self, get_response):
        self.get_response = get_response

    def __call__(self, request):
        # Check for the presence of the JWT in the Authorization header
        # Debugging the Authorization header
        print(f"Authorization Header: {request.headers.get('Authorization')}")
        auth_header = request.headers.get("Authorization")
        if auth_header and auth_header.startswith("Bearer "):
            token = auth_header.split(" ")[1]
            try:
                user = decode_jwt_token(token)
                print(f"JWT Decoded Payload: {user}")  #  Print decoded token
                request.user = user  #  Assign the user here
                request._force_auth_user = user
                print(f"JWT Middleware: User assigned: {request.user.email} - {request.user.role}")
            except jwt.ExpiredSignatureError:
                print("JWT Middleware: Token expired")
            except jwt.DecodeError:
                print("JWT Middleware: Invalid token")

        response = self.get_response(request)
        print(
            f"JWT Middleware (After Response): {request.user if hasattr(request, 'user') else 'No User'}"
        )  # Debug after response
        return response

class InviteUserView(APIView):
    """Invite a user via email with role assignment"""

    @bypass_csrf
    @authorize
    @role_required([UserRoleEnum.SUPER_ADMIN.value])
    def post(self, request):
        print(f"DEBUG: User in request inside view - {getattr(request, 'user', 'No User')}")
        serializer = UserInvitationSerializer(data=request.data)
        try:
            if serializer.is_valid():
                invitation_link = send_invitation(request, serializer, request.user)
                response = create_response(201, ResponseCodes.SUCCESS, True, invitation_link, None, None)
        except Exception as e:
            response = create_response(500, ResponseCodes.ERROR, False, {}, str(e), str(e))

        return response

def authorize(view_func):
    """Decorator to ensure that the user is authenticated via JWT."""

    @functools.wraps(view_func)
    def wrapper(request, *args, **kwargs):
        print(f"DEBUG: User in request BEFORE middleware - {getattr(request, 'user', 'No User')}")  # Debugging line
        if not hasattr(request, "user") or isinstance(request.user, AnonymousUser):
            return create_response(
                401,
                ResponseCodes.UNAUTHORIZED.name,
                False,
                None,
                "Authentication required.",
                ResponseCodes.UNAUTHORIZED.value,
            )
        print(f"DEBUG: User in request AFTER middleware - {request.user}")
        return view_func(request, *args, **kwargs)

    return wrapper