PHP Sessions not working

[wavesurf]

Hi -

I need some help with coding sessions in php (binary distribution 4.2.3) on a win 2000 platform running Apache 1.3.24.

I have gone through a bunch of tutorials on this issue, but I can't seem to get it working (both by myself, or by writing the tutorials character by character).

I start out by registering the session with session_start() and then putting a bunch of variables inside the session with session_register. Then on the following script page I try to check if the session is active by using session_is_registered(SESSION);

If I check the directory where the sessions is stored it seems to be working, with all the variables registered, but it doesn't seem to understand this.

Does anyone know how to fix this? Could it be something with my installation?

I have attached my files if that is needed.

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[bobthedog]

Ok....

session_is_registered() takes the name of a variable and attempts to look it up in the session variables to see if it is registered...

sooo - page 1

<?php

session_register('cool');

$cool = 'tree';

?>

blah blah blah

and then to retrieve it on page 2

<?php

if (session_is_registered('cool'))
{
    print('it is registered');
}

?>

blah blah blah
?>

Anyhow - hope this helps you in the right direction

[wavesurf]

Hi -

That is what I did originally, and I also tried to change the one file to do this just now and it still doesn't seem to see that it is registered.

---

Page 1:

session_start();

session_register("SESSION");
$SESSION = "test";

...........

---

Page 2:

if (!session_is_registered("test")) {
echo "Not working";
} else {
echo "Working";
}

....

And it doesn't work. It seems really weird, because I have followed a bunch of tutorials and your tips, but it doesn't work. And it seems like it should since all those tutorials can't be wrong - can they?

Hmmm.

Anything else anyone can think of?

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[itguysam]

Just kind of a general debugging question: Have you tried to make sure that you can access the value on the original page? Also are you sure that you are passing the SID correctly? Print it out in both places and see if it is the same.

[hr]
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Sherlock Holmes

[bobthedog]

The code you typed above is wrong though -

if (!session_is_registered("test")) { 
echo "Not working"; 
} else { 
echo "Working"; 
} 

should actually read

if (!session_is_registered("SESSION")) { 
echo "Not working"; 
} else { 
echo "Working"; 
} 

since SESSION is the name of the registered variable, and "test" is just the value you assigned to it.

[fandelem]

Actually, from what you have given us as sample code, you first must remember from the manual that you have to call session_start() on EACH PAGE you wish to maintain your session information. Keep in mind url-rewriting if you wish to make your site non-cookie dependent as well. See http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php for more details in both areas.

k.

[wavesurf]

I don't know why, but it still doesn't work.

Do I need to do something different because of the settings I have. Also, does anyone have an easy explanation of the url.rewriter.tags? I trid looking at it in the manual, but I didn't really understand it.

Could someone try the files on a local server to see if their setup makes it work? This are my session settings if that can clear anything up.

Session Support :enabled
session.auto_start 😮ff
session.cache_expire :180
session.cache_limiter :nocache
session.cookie_domain :no value
session.cookie_lifetime :0
session.cookie_path :cookies
session.cookie_secure 😮ff
session.entropy_file :no value
session.entropy_length :0
session.gc_maxlifetime :1440
session.gc_probability :1
session.name 😛HPSESSID
session.referer_check :no value
session.save_handler :files
session.save_path :sessions
session.serialize_handler :php
session.use_cookies 😮n
session.use_trans_sid :0

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[wavesurf]

Hi again -

Tried a little experiment with the trans-sid, which I enabled. This led to the session id being transferred in the url, and to the correct effect.

This is good, but for security reasons I guess this is not ideal.

So it seems like when I turn this off it doesn't understand what session is active. Anyone have any ideas on how to make it understand what session is active without having the trans-sid enabled?

Maybe this has something to do with the url_rewriter.tags?

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[bobthedog]

Hmm - more likely to be that you have disabled cookies on your browser.

Make sure that your browser can receive System cookies (just enable all cookies while testing).

[wavesurf]

Hmmm. I checked my browser and it seems to have enabled support for cookies in the "Internet Options".

Also I'm pretty sure that isn't the problem, since I have been visiting a bunch of sites which utilize cookies, and I don't seem to have a problem with this on these sites.

The more I think about it, I'm convinced it must be something with my set-up, since I have followes every coding tip to "perfection" and it works without trans-sid enabled and not with it disabled. Unless of course it has something to do with the url-referer tags, which I haven't figured out yet 🙂

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[twigletmac]

Does this work:

page1

<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['test'] = 1;
echo '<a href="page2.php">Go to page 2</a>';
?>

page 2

<?php
session_start();
if (!empty($_SESSION['test'])) {
    echo 'it worked!';
} else {
    echo 'it did not work :(';
}
?>

You shouldn't have to use session_register() or session_is_registered() with PHP 4.1 or up and those functions won't work with register_globals off.

Mac

[wavesurf]

Well, I tried that one, but it did not work either.

Seems like a weird little problem I'm having 🙂

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[wavesurf]

However, it seems like it generates a new session every time a page starts with session_start();

From page 1 it starts one session, while page 2 starts another one. The first session file has this content: test|i:1; while the next one has nothing.

Does this mean anything to anyone. Well, it obviously means that my stupid server doesn't know about the first session. I just can't understand why 🙂

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[bobthedog]

Whats the session timeout set to in your php.ini file?

[wavesurf]

These are my php.ini settings' setting 🙂

Session Support :enabled
session.auto_start 😮ff
session.cache_expire :180
session.cache_limiter :nocache
session.cookie_domain :no value
session.cookie_lifetime :0
session.cookie_path :cookies
session.cookie_secure 😮ff
session.entropy_file :no value
session.entropy_length :0
session.gc_maxlifetime :1440
session.gc_probability :1
session.name 😛HPSESSID
session.referer_check :no value
session.save_handler :files
session.save_path :sessions
session.serialize_handler hp
session.use_cookies 😮n
session.use_trans_sid :0

Regards,
Marius Røstad

[wavesurf]

These are my php.ini settings' setting 🙂

Session Support :enabled
session.auto_start 😮ff
session.cache_expire :180
session.cache_limiter :nocache
session.cookie_domain :no value
session.cookie_lifetime :0
session.cookie_path :cookies
session.cookie_secure 😮ff
session.entropy_file :no value
session.entropy_length :0
session.gc_maxlifetime :1440
session.gc_probability :1
session.name 😛HPSESSID
session.referer_check :no value
session.save_handler :files
session.save_path :sessions
session.serialize_handler hp
session.use_cookies 😮n
session.use_trans_sid :0

Regards,
Marius Røstad