help: getting warning: session_start() open(blah blah) failed

koustuvsinha

i am a newbie in php programming. Currently i use php5 with apache server and mysql database. I am using win 7 (home basic edition).

Whenever i try using Sessions in php using session_start() function, i get the following error:

[FONT="Courier New"]Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: open(/tmp/\sess_397b6a82b3244d107b9ec391d067f11e, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in E:\My Documents\PHP progs\comic\main.php on line 2

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at E:\My Documents\PHP progs\comic\main.php:2) in E:\My Documents\PHP progs\comic\main.php on line 2

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at E:\My Documents\PHP progs\comic\main.php:2) in E:\My Documents\PHP progs\comic\main.php on line 2[/FONT]

i tried many online forums... after that i changed my session.save_path directory couple of times... 1 day it worked, bt frm the next day same error... plz advice

djjjozsi

make a tmp folder where the script can save session files.

bradgrafelman

... and once you do that, make sure you set the session.save_path PHP directive.

koustuvsinha

ya i did create several tmp folders in diff locations, and changed session.save_path... bt the prblm keeps on coming!

bradgrafelman

As you change the session.save_path directive, does the first error message reflect the new location? In other words, the path inside of the open() part should be prefixed with the value of that directive. If it isn't changing from "/tmp/", then the problem would appear to be that you actually haven't changed session.save_path (at least, not anywhere that PHP is looking). Perhaps you forgot to restart the webserver and/or verified that PHP is loading the same php.ini file you're editing?

koustuvsinha

i restarted my web server several times... the sessions.save_path directive gets changed but the problem comes again... but i have found out a solution... if i myself set the sessions.save _path directive within my php program to a location after session.start(), the problem is averted! 🙂

Weedpacket

Have you checked whether PHP is reading the appropriate php.ini file, as bradgrafelman suggested?

bradgrafelman

koustuvsinha;11006801 wrote:
i restarted my web server several times... the sessions.save_path directive gets changed

How did you verify this? For example, did you use a [man]phpinfo/man page to monitor the value of that PHP directive?

koustuvsinha;11006801 wrote:
but the problem comes again

Which problem? Did you get the exact same set of error mesages? (Hint: You shouldn't have, since the path should have been changing.)

koustuvsinha;11006801 wrote:
but i have found out a solution... if i myself set the sessions.save _path directive within my php program to a location after session.start(), the problem is averted! 🙂

But what happens if you forget to do that in one of your PHP scripts? Or what happens when you change servers or something else causes that path to change (meaning you'd have to visit every single PHP script and fix the path)?

In other words, you didn't find a solution... merely a rather poor workaround. You would be much better off figuring out why you're unable to configure PHP properly.