AARRRGH annoying PHP error! (Session related)

steveryan

Hey,

Anyone have any ideas on this? I'm going mad...

First line of my index.php script is...

<?session_start();

(I've tried it with a new line and a space.)

I'm getting this error -

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at /home/domain/public_html/index.php:1) in /home/domain/public_html/index.php on line 1

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at /home/domain/public_html/index.php:1) in /home/domain/public_html/index.php on line 1

I know this error message normally means some header information has already been sent, but how on earth can header information have already been sent when the very first thing I'm doing in the index.php file is starting the session?

So annoying.

Anyone???

(PS note the time - 05:27am where I am - this has been driving me mad all night!)

bogu

Maybe u include that file and in the file u included u already echo something ...

Try this code, (create script.php):

<?php
	session_start();
	if (!isset($_SESSION['tmp'])) {
		$_SESSION['tmp'] = "value";
		$redirect = "script.php";
		header("Location: {$redirect}");
		die("If the page doesn't redirect click <a href='{$redirect}'>here</a>");
	} else {
		echo "<pre>",print_r($_SESSION,1),"</pre>";
	}
?>

and see that u dont get that error ...

steveryan

Hi Bogu,

I made that file containing the code you suggested.

These are the error messages -

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at /home/domain/public_html/index.php:1) in /home/domain/public_html/index.php on line 3

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at /home/domain/public_html/index.php:1) in /home/domain/public_html/index.php on line 3

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/domain/public_html/index.php:1) in /home/domain/public_html/index.php on line 7
If the page doesn't redirect click here

steveryan

I should add that other scripts aren't having this problem.

Help!!!! 🙁

etully

Steve, is the user going directly to index.php? Or is index.php being included from a different file. For example: Maybe you have login.html and login2.php and then login2.php is INCLUDING index.php ? Or something like that? If that's the case, then anything printed or echo'd in login2.php is already sending the headers and it's too late to start a session in index.php

bogu

Look here an example of your error:

----- script.php --------

<?php 
    session_start(); 
    if (!isset($_SESSION['tmp'])) { 
        $_SESSION['tmp'] = "value"; 
        $redirect = "script.php"; 
        header("Location: {$redirect}"); 
        die("If the page doesn't redirect click <a href='{$redirect}'>here</a>"); 
    } else { 
        echo "<pre>",print_r($_SESSION,1),"</pre>"; 
    } 
?>

----- index.php (wrong way) --------

<html>
<head>
    <title>Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
    include_once("script.php");
?>
</body>
</html>

Execute index.php and you'll see your error, because the header is already sent by output ...

Houdini

If there is a space before
<?php
then that will cause it because that little space is output. Open the file with a plain old text editor like notepad or its MAC equivilent and check to be sure there is no space prior to the opening PHP tag.

steveryan

This is bizarre.

I deleted the file from my command line and retyped it. Now it works?!?!

I guess PHP didn't like some invisible character notepad created?

Strange!

Anyway, thanks for your help.

bradgrafelman

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