Session is not maintained

Question

I have a simple authentication: you login in the login.php page and you are redirected to the home.php page.

This is the code of login.php:

if(pg_num_rows($rs) == 0){ //I search in db for a row with username and password
        $errMess = "error";
        pg_close($conn); 
    }else{
        $row = pg_fetch_row($rs);
        session_start(); 
        $_SESSION['username']=$_POST["nick"];
        $_SESSION['admin'] = $row[0];
        pg_close($conn); 
        header("Location: /home.php");
    }

now in the home I have the header done in this way:

<?php require_once("scripts/functions.php"); 
      require_once("scripts/config.php");
      session_start(); 
?>
 <div id="siteHeader" class="headersLeft"><?php echo WELCOME;?></div>
        <div id="userContainer" class="headersRight"> 

            Logged as: <?php echo getDisplayName(); ?>
            <?php if(isset($_SESSION['username'])) {?>
                <button class="button" onclick="location.href='/logout.php';">logout</button>
            <?php }else{ ?>
                <button class="button" onclick="location.href='/login.php';">login</button>
            <?php }
            ?>
        </div>

it doesn't work: even if data is correct it still gives me "guest", the session variable is lost in the header passage..how come?

How much data are you storing in the session? If its over the limit then that's your problem. — SamV, Nov 02 '13 at 19:31
Set breakpoints in your code and try to understand which part is going wrong. A good start would be to see what `var_dump(pg_num_rows($rs) == 0));` outputs. — Amal Murali, Nov 02 '13 at 19:31
Authentication is fine: it brings to me to the home.php page so num_rows gives the correct output..I think it is something about the session — Phate, Nov 02 '13 at 19:33
What happens if you put `session_start()` at the _very beginning_ of each file? — geomagas, Nov 02 '13 at 19:36
The issue might be that you need to add session_start again if you close the php tags,not sure. — Mihai, Nov 02 '13 at 19:39
@Mihai That is not required (and will generate a warning too). — Sumurai8, Nov 02 '13 at 19:48
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17242346/php-session-lost-after-redirect — Mihai, Nov 02 '13 at 19:49
[Reading the docs](http://php.net/manual/en/function.session-start.php): What does `$a = session_start(); var_dump( $a );` output on both pages? If you make a testpage with just `session_start()` and some dummy variables you read/write and display on the screen, does that work? I assume you already tested this, but are you sure `$_POST['nick']` exists? — Sumurai8, Nov 02 '13 at 19:49
Is there any `$_SESSION`-manipulating code after the first snippet? Where does `$_SESSION['username']` get the `'guest'` value? — geomagas, Nov 02 '13 at 20:51

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 03 '13 at 13:27

1

Solved: i was under windows and the default path to the temp folder, where php actually saves session files, was wrong: was "/tmp" and was not recognized. I set it to "C:\php\tmp" and it worked: session file was not saved at all!

answered Nov 03 '13 at 13:27

Phate

6,066
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it would be nice if you explained how you changed it :) – dsdsdsdsd Sep 14 '14 at 15:55

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 02 '13 at 19:50

0

Write session_start(); on top of everything (right after

<?php 
session_start(); 
require_once("scripts/functions.php"); 
require_once("scripts/config.php");
?>

or if still doesn't work then write your code like this:

<?php 
ob_start();
session_start(); 
require_once("scripts/functions.php"); 
require_once("scripts/config.php");
?>

Also don't forget to put these two lines at the top of your login.php page. Hope it helps :)

answered Nov 02 '13 at 19:50

Ali

5,021
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1

Just a side-note: Even the second one would fail if you save the file as UTF-8 with BOM mark. *If* this is the problem, OP should get the "headers already sent" error if errors are shown. – Sumurai8 Nov 02 '13 at 19:58

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 02 '13 at 21:01

I'm guessing there's some more code after the if statement that continues to manipulate $_SESSION. That's where $_SESSION['username'] is assigned the 'guest' value.

Remember, header("Location: /home.php"); only sets a response header. It doesn't redirect immediately, stopping script execution.

Place a exit; command right after header() to prevent execution from reaching the rest of the code:

    header("Location: /home.php");
    exit;

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 14 '14 at 15:52

0

this works for me:

session_save_path ( "" ) ;  
session_start();

answered Sep 14 '14 at 15:52

dsdsdsdsd

2,880
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Session is not maintained

4 Answers4