PHP $_POST not working but $_GET works fine

Question

I'm trying to build a simple login system using <form method="post">. Everything works fine on MAMP on my laptop but when I upload the script to the server (Windows) it doesn't work; it seems that the $_POST array is empty.

I commented out everything but the bare bones and it still doesn't work.

index.php:

<form id="login-form" method="POST" action="_scripts/check_login.php">
Email Address
<input name="login-email" type="text" id="login-email">
Password
<input name="login-password" type="text" id="login-password">
<input type="submit" name="Submit" id="login-button" value="Login">
</form>

_scripts/check_login.php: (I've removed everything except some var_dumps for debugging)

var_dump($_POST);

$loginEmail = trim($_POST['login-email']);
echo '<br>';
$loginPassword = ($_POST['login-password']);
var_dump($loginEmail);
echo '<br>';
var_dump($loginPassword);

When I submit the form, no matter what I put in the text fields, I see this:

array(0) { }
string(0) ""
NULL

If I change all the instances of "post" to "get" in the above two files, everything works fine. But I don't want to use get. ($_REQUEST doesn't work either if I submit the form using method="post").

NB this all works fine on localhost, but not on the server (which is running Windows.) So it would seem to be a problem with the server, but I have no idea what. You can see the PHPInfo here: http://brailleapps.org/phpinf0.php

Any ideas?

EDIT: Solved! See below.

What does `$_SERVER` contain for POST requests? Did you try enctype? Is the FastCGI client permitted to receive the [POST verb for IIS](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/313188/empty-post-array-in-php-5-2-6-iis-cgi)? — mario, Mar 13 '13 at 13:06
we had the same issue but ajax post not working once we moved to live server. After a long struggle we found server's mod rewrite module turned off. Once turned on everything is fine.So Check that.But as per my knowledge there is no relation with POST and mod rewrite.Just give it a try. — Samy, Mar 13 '13 at 13:08
This might be an issue with the content type. If no content type is recocgnized or it's missing, then `$_POST` is empty. Try setting `if(empty($_SERVER['CONTENT_TYPE'])) {$_SERVER['CONTENT_TYPE'] = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";}`. And what does `var_dump(file_get_contents('php://input'));` say? — Quasdunk, Mar 13 '13 at 13:09
Check this thread: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9914979/php-post-not-working — dozed, Mar 13 '13 at 13:10
Can you check the _SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] variable to be sure that is effectively been sent as Post? — Pedrom, Mar 13 '13 at 13:30
@Quasdunk Just tried that `if(empty($SERVER[...` line but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. Your second bit of code outputs `string(0) ""` — GMA, Mar 13 '13 at 13:32
@Pedrom `var_dump($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"]` outputs `string(4) "POST"` — GMA, Mar 13 '13 at 13:36
Alright, an empty `php://input` means that there is really no content in the request. This is weird, because that's the place to look at for *any* input or if the encoding/content type could not be determined. Looks like your server really drops the content of post-request... Did you make sure that this verb is allowed on your server? Is there maybe a firewall in between that may filter requests? Or did you maybe try with other, even more basic pieces of code, just to make sure that post definitely does not work? — Quasdunk, Mar 13 '13 at 13:40
var_dump($_POST); may be the cause of your error see link: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7547840/var-dump-post-is-empty-but-not-var-dump-post-die — M ten Klooster, Mar 13 '13 at 13:47
the scope of a $_POST variable is restricted to a script ..so check if you have migrated to other scipts and came back to this script before var_dump() — funtime, Mar 13 '13 at 13:51
@Quasdunk Thank you! Having the Content-Type set to 'application/json' in my POST requests is what was causing this issue for me. Sending the POST request using the default 'text/html' HTTP content-type fixed it, and now I can see my POST variables again! For anyone interested in properly handling 'application/json' requests in PHP check out: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8893574/php-php-input-vs-post — TheKarateKid, Jul 24 '17 at 17:55

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 17 '13 at 08:07

I got it fixed eventually, figure I might as well post what worked here in case someone else has the same problem in future.

Turns out one of these HTTP modules was interfering with POST:

RadCompression
RadUploadModule

With these modules turned off, POST worked fine.

(NB this was on a totally new app where I knew there wasn't any existing code that might have depended on one of those modules... turning them off may have unintended consequences I'm not aware of, YMMV.)

how to turn off these modules in MAMP, can you explain pls – rajarajan2809 May 24 '18 at 06:22 — rajarajan2809, May 24 '18 at 06:22

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 13 '13 at 17:30

2

One possibility is that POST is not an allowed verb on the server:

http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/security/requestfiltering/verbs

edited Mar 13 '13 at 17:30

Kermit

33,827
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answered Mar 13 '13 at 13:06

Bart

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That article is about IIS; the question is about Apache. – Kermit Mar 13 '13 at 16:52
DOH. I read the question too quickly. I saw Windows and assumed IIS. – Bart Mar 13 '13 at 17:27
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@AarolamaBluenk - the PHPinfo says with almost certainty that it's IIS. – slugonamission Mar 13 '13 at 17:29
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Indeed it does. Microsoft-IIS/7.5. – Bart Mar 13 '13 at 17:30
My apologies. Read that OP is using `MAMP`. – Kermit Mar 13 '13 at 17:30
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Meh, keep that comment alive, I suspect it would help someone down the line. – Duniyadnd Mar 13 '13 at 17:36
@AarolamaBluenk I'm developing on MAMP on my laptop (which works fine) but then deploying it to a Windows server (where it doesn't work.) Have edited the question to make this clearer. – GMA Mar 14 '13 at 01:32
I think I am having this issue, with a site hosted on Windows Azure, _GET works fine, _post is not passing data from form. – Jon D Nov 06 '13 at 11:17

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 18 '13 at 18:04

I've had the same problem with $_POST being empty/NULL, and after spending 30 minutes searching SO and Google I finally found a solution that worked for me.

Since I don't know how to change the php.ini file for MAMP I edited my htaccess to include this:

php_value post_max_size 60M
php_value upload_max_filesize 60M

and I can var_dump($_POST) with the submitted input fine now.

Reference link: http://helpfulcoder.blogspot.ca/2011/01/empty-post-array-in-mamp.html

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 13 '22 at 10:25

0

and another thing is if you have ever changed .htaccess to hide the format Example .php or .html

action="filename.php" instead of this give action="filename"

your problem solved.

answered Feb 13 '22 at 10:25

Pranav Bhat

59
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PHP $_POST not working but $_GET works fine

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