cookies woes

[rupertbj]

I have the following MySQL DB based hit counter:

<?php
if (empty ( $count ) )
	{
	setcookie( "count", "counted", "0" );
	$user_agent = getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT");
	$IP_address = getenv("REMOTE_ADDR");
	include("mysql.php");
	$sql = "INSERT INTO hitcounter VALUES ( '', '$user_agent', '$IP_address', now() ) "; 
	$result = mysql_query( $sql, $link ); 
	mysql_close( $link );
	}
else {}
?>

The database populates properly, but the cookie seems not to set and every time I revisit the page, the counter goes up. The purpose of the cookie is so that it increments for each new visit to the website, not each time they view a particular page during that visit.

Any ideas?

R

[greensweater]

Check to make sure you are not outputting anything to the browser before trying to set the cookie... if there is any output, even whitespace, the setcookie call will fail because cookies are set in the headers. This can happen if you include() a file that may have whitespace after the closing "?>" .

You could use ob_start() and ob_end_flush() to ensure there is no output before you try to set the cookie.

[rupertbj]

Thanks, but having checked the above and tried the ob_ bits I'm still suffering the same problem.

There is nothing wrong with what I have written as far as I am aware and it works great on several of my other websites, but this one it does not work on...and it's implemented in exactly the same way?!?!?!

Working website: http://www.rancone.co.uk
Not working: http://il-palazzetto.com

Any other ideas?

R