Force AngularJS service to return data before loading controller

You can make the factory to return a promise like this:

angular.module('myApp', ['myApp.filters', 'myApp.services', 'myApp.directives', 'ngResource', 'infinite-scroll', 'ui.bootstrap', 'ngCookies', 'seo'])
    .service('userInfo', function ($http, $cookies) {
    var promise = $http.get('/api/users/' + $cookies.id).
    success(function (data) {
        var userInfo = data.user[0];
        return userInfo;
    });
    return promise;
}) // other stuff comes after this

And in your controller, do

function userProfile($scope, $cookies, userInfo, $http, $resource, $routeParams, $rootScope){
    userInfo.then(function(data){
        $scope.user = data;
    });
}

This can guarantee that whenever you use the service, it always gives you the data synchronously, you don’t have to necessarily load any data before loading the controller.