PHP header location-redirect doesn't work - why?

Question

Here's my file. I want to make it redirect, but nothing happens. To check out what is going on, I added an echo before the header part.

It neither throws an error or redirect to index.php. What is wrong? I have turned output buffering on/off, but nothing makes it redirect. What can I do?

<?
error_reporting(E_ALL);
echo 'This is an error';

header("Location: login.php");
die();
?>

Thanks

Does the code you've provided at least output 'This is an error'? — timdev, Apr 25 '10 at 21:48
No it didn't, but it all had to do with Xdebug breaking up the headers... — Industrial, Apr 26 '10 at 07:13

score 52 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 25 '10 at 21:39

52

From PHP documentation :

header() must be called before any actual output is sent, either by normal HTML tags, blank lines in a file, or from PHP.

And in your case, you are using echo before header()

answered Apr 25 '10 at 21:39

Soufiane Hassou

17,257
2
39
75

I know that and thats why I have made an echo before the header()-call. It makes an error at other servers and should do this. Why doesn't anything happen? – Industrial Apr 25 '10 at 21:40
13

An alternative to change headers would be to use: ` window.location.replace('login.php') " ?>` – Nehal J Wani Nov 10 '12 at 23:19
Nehal J Wani ^^^ That comment did it for me thanks – Ethan Brimhall Apr 27 '18 at 23:10

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 21 '11 at 04:27

2

Do you have short tags enabled? try it with the long tag <?php:

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
header("Location: login.php");
die();
?>

edited Apr 21 '11 at 04:27

Community

1
1

answered Apr 25 '10 at 22:12

jah

2,056
1
18
35

Yep, I do have short tags set enabled, and everything else works fine, except the header stuff... – Industrial Apr 25 '10 at 22:16

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 25 '10 at 22:24

I reminded myself that I had xDebug installed on the actual test environment and after googling it, I found this site: http://bugs.xdebug.org/view.php?id=532

So I'll downloaded the last version of xDebug and changed the php.ini accordingly for the new file and everything works out like a charm. Headers are being sent - the redirecetion is done and errors are displayed.

Thanks everybody for your help!

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 26 '10 at 03:33

Is display_errors enabled?
@Gumbo - It sure is!

well, it sure is not. because

To check out what is going on, I added an echo before the header part.

if you'd have display_errors enabled, it would display an error, at least when you turned output buffering on.

So, first of all make sure you can see error messages.
just print out an undefined variable,

error_reporting(E_ALL);
echo $undef9306;

I am sure you won't see it. So, you have to turn displaying errors on

Next, on the server side you can use headers_sent() function to see if headers were sent. On client side use HTTP sniffer to see if anything were sent

And check your file for the BOM.

Hi. I'm afraid not. Display_errors are enabled as said, but it was the xDebug that caused this... Thanks a lot for your help Col.! — Industrial, Apr 26 '10 at 15:09

PHP header location-redirect doesn't work - why?

4 Answers4

Linked

Related