session_start and session id error

jdcowan

gentle folk,
We are using win2k servers and php4.2..
We received a session_start() and session id error today on a script that has been working fine. I have looked in the D:/Inetpub/mailtemp folder and can see session files that have been written to it.

The script:
<?php

require_once('SHA/PageUtils.php');
require_once('hraq/hraquser.php');

#initialize a session
session_start(); // this is line 7 mentioned in error

// rest of code

[22-Oct-2003 02:11:22] PHP Warning: session_start() [http://www.php.net/function.session-start'>function.session-
start]: The session id contains illegal characters, valid
characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in
D:\inetpub\wwwroot\publications\hraq\index.html on line 7

[22-Oct-2003 02:11:22] PHP Warning: Unknown(): The session id
contains illegal characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and
0-9 in Unknown on line 0

[22-Oct-2003 02:11:22] PHP Warning: Unknown(): Failed to write
session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of
session.save_path is correct (D:/Inetpub/mailtemp) in Unknown on

line 0

Can anyone interpret these errors for me and what they might mean.

I thought session id was created automatically by php with session_start().

Thanks much for any advice.

root1590

you should make sure that your temp directory for session is existing or not
if it is not then create it
secondly that
make sure that include file does not sent any header value
there should be nothing before starting session

finally declare session at the top of the file

i hope it work for u.................

jdcowan

Thanks for your reply, but all is as it should be.
Our required files produce no output.
We write to the mailtemp file, which is named in php.ini and has correct permissions. Infact, there are several files in this folder now.
This is a puzzler.

If session_start() creates a random id automatically, perhaps it is something in php.

We received a similar error on another script today. It also has session_start().

PHP Warning: session_start() [<a
href='http://www.php.net/function.session-start'>function.session-
start</a>]: The session id contains illegal characters, valid
characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in
D:\inetpub\wwwroot\publications\hraq\feature\bestpractices.html on
line 7

Does anyone know where I may go to find and read about this error: ....illegal characters....??

Thanks again....

Quadude

you can't have any line spaces before doing session start, that would be like an html output.