Session timing out - bit of explanation please

Question

From what I thought I understood from sessions, this should be the case:

session times out based on what is set in the php.ini, lets say 30 minutes
if a user continues to browse and we update, lets say $_SESSION['last_activity']=time();, then the session will be active for 30 minutes from the last activity

But what I am seeing is:

Is this a server misconfiguration and why it is being destroyed even though the user is remaining active?

Thanks for the help!

Do you have `session_start()` on every page or only on the login page? — JJJ, Jul 23 '12 at 08:25
Yes I do start_session(); immediately (the page is the same wherever the user goes as it serves up the sub pages/templates) — scott, Jul 23 '12 at 08:25
try this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/520237/how-do-i-expire-a-php-session-after-30-minutes — 000, Jul 23 '12 at 08:26
@RishiKalia That seems to be more about making sure it times out exactly at 30 minutes. That isn't my issue, my issue is if the user is still active, the session shouldn't expire; the session should remain active until the user does nothing for approximately 30 minutes — scott, Jul 23 '12 at 08:30

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 23 '12 at 08:25

0

Make sure you are calling:

session_start();

on every page that the visitor is accessing. This will reset the session clock.

answered Jul 23 '12 at 08:25

I do that on every page (the page is the same everywhere; index.php starts with session_start(); runs a few tasks and serves up the correct template based on the url) – scott Jul 23 '12 at 08:26

1 Answers1