session problem with redirect

[I like pie]

A friend of mine is making a game and has it set up like one of mine (which works) but he's stuck on a problem with sessions. Our code is almost identical, but using redirect causes his problems and not mine.

Anyway, we've got 3 files. login.php, account.php, and _include_session.php

The way it's supposed to work is that login.php starts a session with the right data upon successful login, sends the user to account.php, which then includes session.php (as every page will) to check the access levels of the user among other things.

We've narrowed it down to the redirect in login.php:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL=account.php">

The data is there right before that line, but when we try retreiving it in account.php we get nothing. We've tried scrapping the include and starting the session in the file itself, and still nothing. My guess is that he/we shouldn't be redirecting in that way but it's been working fine for me on many things I've done.

Any ideas on what the heck is going on?

[Litewebsite]

Just an idea, I'm not 100% sure but maybe the PHP function session_write_close() can help you. Use this function right after you have set the $_SESSION values.

[frank9999]

hi, i'm I like pie's friend. i tryed that PHP function session_write_close(), but this isn't work.

[Litewebsite]

Another try

If you are ok with session cookies I think this will solve the lost session. Notice the ini_set().

Page 1

PHP Code:

ini_set('session.use_cookies', 1);
session_start();
$_SESSION['TEST'] = 'Redirect';
session_write_close(); 


Page 2

PHP Code:

ini_set('session.use_cookies', 1);
session_start();
print_r($_SESSION); // print session 


Hope this will help you.

[frank9999]

session cookie is stored in temporary memory of your computer, is there no way to do it with sessions only?

[Litewebsite]

You could place the session id (SID) in the redirect url.

PHP Code:

<?php
echo '<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=sessionLost2.php?'.SID.'">';
?>

[Mrblogs]

It isn't something silly like forgetting to use session_start() is it?

[frank9999]

the session id (SID) in the redirect url isn't working too

and i didn't forget the session_start()

[Mrblogs]

try using header("location:")

instead of meta redirect?

[frank9999]

i tryed that, but still nothing

[helloworld]

$_SESSION['name'] = true;

session_write_close ();

header ( 'location: webpage.php' );

exit ();

[frank9999]

that header ( 'location: account.php' ); isn't working here. i get a white empty login.php after i logged in

[Litewebsite]

The "empty page" could hold some valueable header information (http status codes) but the browser or firewall may prevent redirection(?). To check what headers are sent out you could use http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/ which works with Firefox.

If we go back to sessions can you see if the sessions are being stored in session.save_path ?

We must solve this problem for you! :-)

[Mrblogs]

Failing that...

create a database table.. with 2 fields, an ID and a Data field.

on the page that you want to store the info on..

INSERT the data into that database table, and obtain the ID back.

Then just appnd the ID to the url (ie ?thisID=4)

then re-read the data back from the database on the next page, delete the entry and re-store the session?

[frank9999]

thanks guys for all your help, it's working now