Retention of session variables not worki

Anon

I'm trying to retain user information across pages using sessions. So far I've had no luck. I can initiate the session on the first page just fine (the session file contains all the correct variable info) but when I go to the next page and call the session vars, all the vars are blank. SID is always blank and the only way I can propagate the session ID is by including it like a normal GET var in the URL; this doesn't help either since all the vars turn up blank anyway.

Here is the first page:

<?php
$my_session_variable="YABBA";
$_SESSION['my_session_variable'] = $my_session_variable;
?>

<?php

echo "Here is the next page <a href=session2.php?&id=".$SID."> CLICK </a> ";
echo "Here is the next page <a href=session2.php?&sid=".session_id()."> CLICK </a> ";

foreach ($HTTP_SESSION_VARS as $k => $v) {
echo "yup is $HTTP_SESSION_VARS[$k] ";
}
?>

Here's the second page:

<?php
session_start();
echo "Value of sid: ".$GET['sid']." ";
echo "Value of var: $my_session_variable ";
echo "Value of var: ".session_name()." ";
echo "Value of var: ".session_id()." ";
echo "Value of var: ".$HTTP_SESSION_VARS['my_session_variable']." ";
echo "Value of var: ".$SESSION['my_session_variable']." ";
echo "Value of var: ".$GET['my_session_variable']." ";
echo "Value of var: ".$POST['my_session_variable']." ";
?>

The only lines that print anything are line #2 (prints original session ID; same one as in URL), line #4 (prints "PHPSESSID") and line #5 (prints a new session ID, different from line #2).

Running PHP 4.2, Apache 1.3.24, track_vars enabled, register_globs off, no cookies. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Anon

Check your links:

echo "Here is the next page <a href=session2.php?&id=".$SID."> CLICK </a> ";

echo "Here is the next page <a href=session2.php?&sid=".session_id()."> CLICK </a> ";

It's sufficient to just have
href="session2.php?".SID."> CLICK </a> ";

SID is a constant, and its name lacks the '$' that variables have; it also comes complete with a 'PHPSESSID=' at the start so that it can go straight into the URL.

The session-handling functions (when cookies are turned off) look for a variable called PHPSESSID in the URL. You can change this name by using session_name() on each page that uses the session data.