Laravel 5 session not persisting after user is logged in

Question

I'm having an interesting issue with Laravel 5.

After logging in a user, the logged in status is not persisted across pages. Clearly it has something to do with Session::.

The way I'm logging in a user is pretty straight-forward:

if (Auth::attempt(['email' => $data['email'], 'password' => $data['password']],
    isset($data['remember_me']) ? TRUE : FALSE))
{
    return redirect()->intended('/');
}

A simple print_r(Session::all()); gives me the following if the user is NOT logged in:

Array
(
    [_token] => wV8o75lZnCZ0f6CMMQgdBBM2AxSYjtWisAXx6TgZ
    [flash] => Array
        (
            [old] => Array
                (
                )

            [new] => Array
                (
                )

        )

    [_previous] => Array
        (
            [url] => http://localhost/public
        )

)

After the user is logged in an redirected to / the array looks like this:

Array
(
    [_token] => wV8o75lZnCZ0f6CMMQgdBBM2AxSYjtWisAXx6TgZ
    [flash] => Array
        (
            [old] => Array
                (
                )

            [new] => Array
                (
                )

        )

    [_previous] => Array
        (
            [url] => http://localhost/public/
        )

    [login_82e5d2c56bdd0811318f0cf078b78bfc] => 2
)

However, after any action that will lead to a page refresh or a redirect, the session status is lost.

My config/session.php file looks like so:

<?php

return [
    'driver' => env('SESSION_DRIVER', 'file'),
    'lifetime' => 120,
    'expire_on_close' => false,
    'encrypt' => false,
    'files' => storage_path('framework/sessions'),
    'connection' => null,
    'table' => 'sessions',
    'lottery' => [2, 100],
    'cookie' => 'laravel_session',
    'path' => '/',
    'domain' => null,
    'secure' => false,

];

The locally stored file for the session can be written and read.

I've tried using database drive instead of file. Same thing happens the [login_xx] => 2 key/value is lost and I'm logged out.

Since the Session:: is not completely reset I'm suspecting that I'm not logging in the user properly or simply doing something that I shouldn't be doing somewhere.

Answer 1

I faced similar issue, I simply called:

Session::save();

after any add/update/delete to Session storage. So it looked like:

$id = Input::get('id');
Session::forget('cart.' .$id);
Session::save();

Answer 2

I had the same issue. Once I removed the various combinations of dd() and print_r() I was using to dump responses for testing purposes and allowed the method to complete and fully render the view, the issue went away and sessions persisted.

Answer 3

I solved changing

'cookie' => 'laravel_session',

to

'cookie' => 'myapp_session',

according to laravel the name of the cookie affects every driver

Answer 4

I'm not familiar with Laravel, but on CodeIgniter I save user session in CI's Session Class and Laravel has one too.

I suggest to use the build-in session which is more persistent than default $_SESSION - probably it saves user data in database and on each page refresh/change the session is populated again from DB.

When user authenticates, just save its session data like this:

Session::put('userData', 'value');

...where value could be just a boolean value or an entire object that holds user specific data.

On each page load, get user data from session:

$user = Session::get('userData');

if($user->id) echo 'user is logged-in'; //or if($user) - depends on what you store in 'userData' key
else echo 'guest only privilegies';

EDIT: I see that you use the Auth Class. My answer is mostly for manual login of the user and it works.
I think that the Auth Class should be doing this by default, but probably you're missing some configuration or there's a bug.

Here's a possible solution (Laravel 4, but it worths a try): http://laravel.io/forum/11-11-2014-authcheck-always-returning-false

Update:

As of this you should try to change the driver value from

'driver' => env('SESSION_DRIVER', 'file')

to

'driver' => 'file'

...also on Laravel's docs you can see that the driver has to be defined like that.

Answer 5

First, make sure you don't have some sort of a before filter, middleware, or route group that is causing them to be logged out. At least temporarily, search for any Auth::logout() and comment it out. I have seen this be the problem more than once.

Second, you look like you're doing this call correctly. The third parameter is $login : bool and it defaults to true. This is not your problem, but please change your TRUE and FALSE to true and false to meet with PSR-1/2 standards.

I would have advised that you try another driver, but you have done that and have the same result. This leads me to think that you have some sort of earlier code that is misdirecting to a logout().

Answer 6

You need to make sure of 2 things if you are using default laravel's file session which you can check if you are using in session.php file.

1. The session directory ie storage/framework/session/ is writable.
2. The routes for logging in maybe (/login) and for checking authentication (maybe /dashboard) are all within the group web

ie.

Route::group(['middleware' => ['web']], function () {
   Route::get('/home/login', ['as' => 'login', 'uses' => 'HomeController@getLogin']);
Route::post('/home/login', ['as' => 'login', 'uses' => 'HomeController@postLogin']);
   Route::get('/home/dashboard', ['as' => 'home', 'uses' => 'HomeController@getDashboard']);
}

This worked for me in Laravel 5.

Answer 7

I had this problem to and i solve this way. After Auth::attemp or Auth::login() dont use echo, var_dump or dd() i dont know why but those prevent to keep the session in the browser.

And now is working

                public function testLogin(Request $request, $id){

                    $user = Account::find($id);
                    Auth::login($user);

                }

Answer 8

Don't forget to save like session()->save() or Session::save()

Answer 9

I have faced the same issues after the user logged in the session is not persistent. So i found the solution for this. just change one line in config/session.php file

Change in this code

'cookie' => env( 'SESSION_COOKIE', Str::slug(env('APP_NAME', 'laravel'), '_').'_session' )

To:

'cookie' => env(
    'local_cookies',
    Str::slug(env('APP_NAME', 'laravel'), '_').'_session'
),

then clear the caches. it will fix the issue :)

Answer 10

correctedHum... Ensure your machine is setted with good date and hour, and equally the other machines on the network who working with.

For exemple in Debian system:

In the command prompt, hit date (you will see the date), if it's not correct follow these instructions:

1. apt-get install ntp
2. service ntp start
3. date (normally the date and hour are corrected)

Answer 11

Use "cookie" driver instead of "file" of session.php (config\session.php\driver). I had a problem with login using "Auth::loginUsingId()" api instead of "Auth::attempt()" api, it destroyed the session for another request.

Answer 12

Make sure that the target route also uses the middleware StartSession. In my "fresh" installation of Laravel 5.2 the "web" middleware group uses it, but the root path (/), which also happens to be the default $redirectTo after login, was outside of it. Huge loss of time.

Answer 13

I had a similar problem and I have fixed it by changing the Session Driver from SESSION_DRIVER=database to SESSION_DRIVER=file

Answer 14

In my case I had to change the domain setting in the app/config/sessions.php file. I had a different domain written there instead of the one that I was using and naturally it didn't work. Though I don't understand why the framework went ahead and created the session files each time I was reloading the page.

Answer 15

I had the same issue, but it has been fixed now.

It's because of the conflict between sessions in your machine and in your localhost domain. To solve the problem:

First of all check your config/session.php file and check this:

'domain' => null,

after that clear your cookies:

on Firefox, right click -> view page info -> Security -> View Cookies -> Remove all

Answer 16

i had the same problem in laravel 5.4, the solution for me was:

In the file /app/Http/Kernel.php, was commented middleware AuthenticateSession by default.

protected $middlewareGroups = [
    'web' => [
        \App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies::class,
        \Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse::class,
        \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
        //\Illuminate\Session\Middleware\AuthenticateSession::class,
        \Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession::class,
        \App\Http\Middleware\VerifyCsrfToken::class,
        \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,
    ],

    'api' => [
        'throttle:60,1',
        'bindings',
    ],
];

Only uncommented this line and the session work fine in all routes

protected $middlewareGroups = [
    'web' => [
        \App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies::class,
        \Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse::class,
        \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
        \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\AuthenticateSession::class,
        \Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession::class,
        \App\Http\Middleware\VerifyCsrfToken::class,
        \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,
    ],

    'api' => [
        'throttle:60,1',
        'bindings',
    ],
];

Answer 17

If you are using loginUsingId() method you should set 'remember' flag to true.

So, instead of doing:

loginUsingId(1);

You should do

loginUsingId(1, true);

See docs

Answer 18

You might wanna check public/index.php, see if there are codes before the Laravel codes. After I remove those codes, I can login just fine.

<?php
    echo 'hello';
?>

<?php

/**
 * Laravel - A PHP Framework For Web Artisans
 *
 * @package  Laravel
 * @author   Taylor Otwell <taylor@laravel.com>
 */

I seems, someone "messed" with my sites, and index.php is the main target for malicious codes

Answer 19

Just add session start and authenticate middleware to global middleware in kernel.php file

Answer 20

just check then cookie allow false

'secure' => env('SESSION_SECURE_COOKIE', false)

In my case I put it as true insted of true, then I changed its into false

Answer 21

I am faced this problem when dealing with the oracle database, and by searching and debugging it is solving by change the protected $primaryKey = "name in lowercase" public $incrementing = false;