[RESOLVED] .htaccess file ignored/randomly applied?

[vikette]

Going a little crazy over something which seems simple ...

I have a .htaccess file which sits in the root directory of my site just to switch off those pesky PHPSESSID's. They keep coming back though, particularly when I first reopen the browser and click on the first link.

<IfModule mod_php4.c>
php_flag session.use_trans_sid off
php_value arg_separator.input ;&
php_value arg_separator.output ;
</IfModule>

• on a hosted server with Apache and PHP 4.3.x with htaccess definitely enabled (I use it in password-protected directories).

What's wrong? How can I test it?

[NogDog]

Perhaps what you want is the session.use_only_cookies setting?

[vikette]

That didn't seem to help in this case. The only thing which I'm sure works (using the HTML validator to test) was doing a find & replace in the php code itself and inserting the following:

ini_set("url_rewriter.tags","");
session_start();

(from the forum below) ... because that is a RUNTIME modifiable string. This allows trans_sid to do its thing, but it doesn’t have any "thing" to do. Result: runtime control of trans_sid for people using complied in PHP modules.

There's an interesting discussion of various solutions here, if anyone else if having similar issues:
http://www.mtdev.com/2002/06/why-you-should-disable-phps-session-use_trans_sid/