PHP Session not working as expected

Question

I am having problems getting PHP sessions to work correctly. I have the following two pages as a test. I would expect sess2.php to output 'bing' but it isn't doing.

sess1.php

<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['usr'] = 'bing';
echo '<a href="sess2.php">go</a>';

sess2.php

<?php
session_start();
echo $_SESSION['usr'];

Am I missing something?

Try var_dump($_SESSION['usr']); instead echo. So you can see even if the value is null. — Subin Thomas, Sep 22 '15 at 11:50
I don't think cookies must be enabled to manipulate server-side session variables — al'ein, Sep 22 '15 at 11:54
Please, check [all these configs](http://php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php) on your **php.ini** file. — al'ein, Sep 22 '15 at 11:58
var_dump($_SESSION['usr']); put this in the sess1.php file and see session is getting set or not @PeterAstbury — Subin Thomas, Sep 22 '15 at 12:02
@AlanMachado Not in forwarded page. In the same page session set done.. in sess1.php file.. — Subin Thomas, Sep 22 '15 at 12:03
I think maybe can be a session store path , maybe it can be bad writte permisions or not defined , try to do echo session_save_path() , if not null then check if the the folder have write permissions — Joaquin Javi, Sep 22 '15 at 12:10
@AlanMachado session variables all look fairly standard to me... https://www.dropbox.com/s/74i7ccd4pq340j5/phpsession.PNG?dl=0 — Peter Astbury, Sep 22 '15 at 12:12
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6200612/session-variables-are-not-persisting-between-page-loads describes all the possibilities in session @PeterAstbury — Subin Thomas, Sep 22 '15 at 12:14
@JoaquinJavi I thought it did - apache has full permissions on the folder - however when, just to test, I gave full 777 permissions to that folder everything worked as expected - so apparently 'apache' isn't the user that needs the permissions. As I'm running Plesk php is run by psacln so that was the user that needed permissions - NOT apache as I had thought. Thanks! If you want to post this as an answer rather than a comment then I'll mark it as the accepted answer — Peter Astbury, Sep 24 '15 at 12:45
Ok i will now , and firstly apologize me i didn't read deeply in you question and using mobile while i'm in transit — Joaquin Javi, Sep 24 '15 at 13:11

Joaquin Javi · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-24T13:33:48.800

1

has the var/lib/php/session folder writte permisions?

Sometimes the user / group executing apache are not the same as the root or your owner user/group, that's depending on specific built in configuration.

Try to chmod 777 to your session storage path , you can perform it doing session_save_path() to see the specific folder or look in your phpinfo()

edited Sep 24 '15 at 13:33

answered Sep 24 '15 at 13:12

Joaquin Javi

880
7
12

can you reword this an an answer rather than as a followup query? That would be much more helpful to this and other people reading this question on SO. Cheers. – Martin Sep 24 '15 at 13:19
Thanks @JoaquinJavi this helped! I had permissions set on that folder but for the wrong user - I had assumed that the permissions were needed by apache but php wasn't being run by apache - I changed ownership of the folder to the user which php runs as and all worked as expected. – Peter Astbury Sep 24 '15 at 17:08

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 22 '15 at 12:58

Try to modify files like this to see where the problem is:

sess1.php

<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['usr'] = 'bing';
echo '<a href="sess2.php">go</a>';
echo '<pre>' . print_r($_SESSION, true) . '</pre>'

sess2.php

<?php
session_start();
echo '<pre>' . print_r($_SESSION, true) . '</pre>'

If you see an empty $_SESSION at sess1.php then the problem with opening and/or setting session itself; if sess1.php is fine, but sess2.php has empty $_SESSION then something wrong with passing session across requests (e.g. disabled cookies). Either way this will give you a clue on where the problem is and figure out solution from there.

Thanks - the session variables weren't being stored as the folder that stores them on the server had the permissions set incorrectly. All sorted now. — Peter Astbury, Sep 24 '15 at 12:47

PHP Session not working as expected

2 Answers2