Burned Cookies

Anon

We recently set up a registration system on our site. Prompt for this only works when the user tries to access a story older than 1 day. Amazingly in the first week we had 3800 end-users register. We didn't think the archives were that active. Anyway, we've only had a handful of complaints. Mostly due to Cookie issues.

I was wondering if there is a list of OS/browser configurations that will crap out on the setcookie function for PHP?

This is my snippet.

function cookiemaker($email){
$setdate= mktime(0,0,0,12,32,date('Y')+3);
$host=getenv('HTTP_HOST');
setcookie ("uid",$email,$setdate, "/", $host);
}

This snippet is working on two sites using the registration and the cookie errors are coming only from one of the sites. The site with the error is setting 2 cookies. I'm not sure where the 2nd cookie is coming from.

Site 1 Cookie(s):

uid
ronp%40cnpapers.com
dailymail.com/
1536
3203958784
29683646
343778560
29446390

he
llo
dailymail.com/
1600
1056312064
29446591
347178560
29446390

Site 2 Cookie:

uid
ronp%40cnpapers.com
wvgazette.com/
1536
3203958784
29683646
930318560
29446390
*

Because the only difference is the 2 cookies for site 1 and 1 cookie for site 2 (which hasn't reported any cookie errors). I'm confused.

Ron Phillips

emcb_php

Hi,

Sorry i dont know much yet about cookies.

But I think you should take a look at the php.net website (
http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.cookies.php)

This will give you more understanding of cookies and why you may be experiencing these problems.

Elfyn

junebug

i don't know about a browser cookie issue list, but using sessions might be easier and would kill the complaints. that is, if you are using PHP4+

emcb_php

Chris,

I have just build a login page for the foum im designing and i need to use cookies/or sessions se keep the the username, password, access level and their welcome message stored just whill their using the forum, but when they close/exit their browser they will have to re-login.

Any ideas as to how i can do this?

Sorry for using your post Ron 🙂

Cheers,

Elfyn

junebug

use sessions to store the data. start the session when they log in and store everything in it. this way all the information stays on the server side. then when they log out use session_destroy to kill the session. you can read all about this stuff here:

http://www.php.net/session

emcb_php

Chris,

Thanks, Thats just what i needed.

Cheers,

Elfyn

Anon

Chris,

Sessions wouldn't work in this case because we only want the user to log in once, unless they opt to not keep a long term cookies. Then they would log in per session.

Thanks for the input.

Ron

emcb_php

Hi,

You could include some kind of profile for the registered users where they can choose to use a cookie or a session.

And when a new user signs up they can also choose which to use.

If they choose cookie you can set it to expire in X months or even years.

So the cookie would keep users logged-in indefinately and the session would allow them to stay logged-in for their browser session.

I have got a profile system for the forum software im currently designing, if you want i could e-mail it to you.

Hope this helps,

Elfyn

Anon

setcookie("userid",$userid,time(),"/",".yoursite.com");

this will set a cookie, when the browser is closed the cookie will expire.

also i've never really heard of cookie problems... sides a cookie can only be read
by the website it is set by...