Page redirects by itself, or empty page shown

thexchord

apache 2.0.5
PHP Version 4.3.8
mysql 4.0.15
winXP

i have been having some weird problems with sessions and page redirects...

i have a search form, which is submitted when the user clicks on an image, that has an <a onlick="document.myform.submit()"> around it.

the form is submitted to another page, say x.php which , either shows search results or if no query was submitted, redirects to the home page.

one of two things happen - either an empty page appears, or the results page appears and just as the resutls have all been displayed, it redirects to the homepage!

within x.php the code is like:

if (formsubmitted)
{get result array from database}
else
{ header('location: index.php');
}

I have no clue why it redirects - with some echo statements i found that it first enters the if() part above, gets andshows the results then goes back (somehow), and gets into the else() part!

on a side note - in phpmyadmin, when i click on the 'structure' link, someimets the page seems to start blinking - like it was being refreshed again and again, and sometimes when i submit a query it goes to the results page and then suddenly redirects to the homepage and says 'No SQL Query!'

please help 🙁

paulnaj

Thexcord,

This is a possibility.

Do I assume correctly that the submit button (or other element) on the form referred to in the link ....

... is called 'formsubmitted' ?

In which case, make sure to refer to that element as $POST['formsubmitted'] or $GET['formsubmitted'] (depending on the form action), in the if/else condition instead of just $formsubmitted.

See the manual entry on predefined variables for the reason why.

That might be it!

Paul.

thexchord

hey paul
thanks for replying!

hmm ya i am using the proper global variables to access the submitted variables and the form name is also correctly used.

i stil haven't resolved the problem - but i think i MAY have found the root cause and a possible solution...

i discovered that the <A href="#" onclick="doc....> tag has #
in the HREF tag - now when a user clicks the browser takes the page to the top - this is ok, but i 'THINK' that since this is a PHP page, once in a while the browser refreshes the page when the link is clicked - ni which case no variables are submitted and the page then tries to redirect due to no search submission...

i really think this is it...i have changed the # to a blank and put a 'return false' in the end within the onclick. this seems to work for now.

paulnaj

Hi thexcord,

Just checking on the old 'globals' chestnut ... it's a common error, it seems!! 😉

Yes, I often see code using the href="#", onclick , combination, but you might be right and it's causing some kind of problem.

It might be a browser-specific problem as well, OK on IE, bad on others or whatever.

Another way, which is clearer to me, is to use ...

... and skirt the onclick altogether.

Paul.

thexchord

hmm will try putting the submit() in the href itself...thanks for helping!

will get back once i resolve it completely...

nightowl

Related problem I think and no solution so far: when I do a print_r of an array, my page keeps loading and loading and loading time and time again - very weird. No clue on why this is ... 🙂

thexchord

hi
just to tell you guys i still haven't foudn a solution to this problem. however the error doesn't get replicated on my productino server, hence therez a high chance that the problem may actually be with my Apache or PHP installation!