I just migrated servers and am now losing session variables between session_start()s. If I look in cookies, I see a session number but if I look in /var/lib/php/session which is the default session.save_path I don’t see that session there. First of all should I see it there?
And if not, any ideas as to what to look for? I am assuming the problem must be in php.ini but that all looks okay to my untrained eye. That is the only thing at this point that I think would affect session vars that is different between the environments. Everything else like page retrieval, database connection and retrieval are all working fine.
Thanks
Here is the session section of php.ini if that helps anyone.
[Session]
; Handler used to store/retrieve data.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.save-handler
session.save_handler = files
; Argument passed to save_handler. In the case of files, this is the path
; where data files are stored. Note: Windows users have to change this
; variable in order to use PHP's session functions.
;
; As of PHP 4.0.1, you can define the path as:
;
; session.save_path = "N;/path"
;
; where N is an integer. Instead of storing all the session files in
; /path, what this will do is use subdirectories N-levels deep, and
; store the session data in those directories. This is useful if you
; or your OS have problems with lots of files in one directory, and is
; a more efficient layout for servers that handle lots of sessions.
;
; NOTE 1: PHP will not create this directory structure automatically.
; You can use the script in the ext/session dir for that purpose.
; NOTE 2: See the section on garbage collection below if you choose to
; use subdirectories for session storage
;
; The file storage module creates files using mode 600 by default.
; You can change that by using
;
; session.save_path = "N;MODE;/path"
;
; where MODE is the octal representation of the mode. Note that this
; does not overwrite the process's umask.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.save-path
session.save_path = "/var/lib/php/session"
; Whether to use cookies.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.use-cookies
session.use_cookies = 1
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.cookie-secure
;session.cookie_secure =
; This option forces PHP to fetch and use a cookie for storing and maintaining
; the session id. We encourage this operation as it's very helpful in combatting
; session hijacking when not specifying and managing your own session id. It is
; not the end all be all of session hijacking defense, but it's a good start.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.use-only-cookies
session.use_only_cookies = 1
; Name of the session (used as cookie name).
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.name
session.name = TBDSESSID
; Initialize session on request startup.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.auto-start
session.auto_start = 0
; Lifetime in seconds of cookie or, if 0, until browser is restarted.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.cookie-lifetime
session.cookie_lifetime = 0
; The path for which the cookie is valid.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.cookie-path
session.cookie_path = /
; The domain for which the cookie is valid.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.cookie-domain
session.cookie_domain = ".mysite.com"
; Whether or not to add the httpOnly flag to the cookie, which makes it inaccessible to browser scripting languages such as JavaScript.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.cookie-httponly
session.cookie_httponly =
; Handler used to serialize data. php is the standard serializer of PHP.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.serialize-handler
session.serialize_handler = php
; Defines the probability that the 'garbage collection' process is started
; on every session initialization. The probability is calculated by using
; gc_probability/gc_divisor. Where session.gc_probability is the numerator
; and gc_divisor is the denominator in the equation. Setting this value to 1
; when the session.gc_divisor value is 100 will give you approximately a 1% chance
; the gc will run on any give request.
; Default Value: 1
; Development Value: 1
; Production Value: 1
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.gc-probability
session.gc_probability = 1
; Defines the probability that the 'garbage collection' process is started on every
; session initialization. The probability is calculated by using the following equation:
; gc_probability/gc_divisor. Where session.gc_probability is the numerator and
; session.gc_divisor is the denominator in the equation. Setting this value to 1
; when the session.gc_divisor value is 100 will give you approximately a 1% chance
; the gc will run on any give request. Increasing this value to 1000 will give you
; a 0.1% chance the gc will run on any give request. For high volume production servers,
; this is a more efficient approach.
; Default Value: 100
; Development Value: 1000
; Production Value: 1000
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.gc-divisor
session.gc_divisor = 1000
; After this number of seconds, stored data will be seen as 'garbage' and
; cleaned up by the garbage collection process.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.gc-maxlifetime
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440
; NOTE: If you are using the subdirectory option for storing session files
; (see session.save_path above), then garbage collection does *not*
; happen automatically. You will need to do your own garbage
; collection through a shell script, cron entry, or some other method.
; For example, the following script would is the equivalent of
; setting session.gc_maxlifetime to 1440 (1440 seconds = 24 minutes):
; cd /path/to/sessions; find -cmin +24 | xargs rm
; PHP 4.2 and less have an undocumented feature/bug that allows you to
; to initialize a session variable in the global scope, even when register_globals
; is disabled. PHP 4.3 and later will warn you, if this feature is used.
; You can disable the feature and the warning separately. At this time,
; the warning is only displayed, if bug_compat_42 is enabled. This feature
; introduces some serious security problems if not handled correctly. It's
; recommended that you do not use this feature on production servers. But you
; should enable this on development servers and enable the warning as well. If you
; do not enable the feature on development servers, you won't be warned when it's
; used and debugging errors caused by this can be difficult to track down.
; Default Value: On
; Development Value: On
; Production Value: Off
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.bug-compat-42
session.bug_compat_42 = Off
; This setting controls whether or not you are warned by PHP when initializing a
; session value into the global space. session.bug_compat_42 must be enabled before
; these warnings can be issued by PHP. See the directive above for more information.
; Default Value: On
; Development Value: On
; Production Value: Off
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.bug-compat-warn
session.bug_compat_warn = Off
; Check HTTP Referer to invalidate externally stored URLs containing ids.
; HTTP_REFERER has to contain this substring for the session to be
; considered as valid.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.referer-check
session.referer_check =
; How many bytes to read from the file.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.entropy-length
session.entropy_length = 0
; Specified here to create the session id.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.entropy-file
;session.entropy_file = /dev/urandom
session.entropy_file =
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.entropy-length
;session.entropy_length = 16
; Set to {nocache,private,public,} to determine HTTP caching aspects
; or leave this empty to avoid sending anti-caching headers.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.cache-limiter
session.cache_limiter = nocache
; Document expires after n minutes.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.cache-expire
session.cache_expire = 180
; trans sid support is disabled by default.
; Use of trans sid may risk your users security.
; Use this option with caution.
; - User may send URL contains active session ID
; to other person via. email/irc/etc.
; - URL that contains active session ID may be stored
; in publically accessible computer.
; - User may access your site with the same session ID
; always using URL stored in browser's history or bookmarks.
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.use-trans-sid
session.use_trans_sid = 0
; Select a hash function for use in generating session ids.
; Possible Values
; 0 (MD5 128 bits)
; 1 (SHA-1 160 bits)
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.hash-function
session.hash_function = 0
; Define how many bits are stored in each character when converting
; the binary hash data to something readable.
; Possible values:
; 4 (4 bits: 0-9, a-f)
; 5 (5 bits: 0-9, a-v)
; 6 (6 bits: 0-9, a-z, A-Z, "-", ",")
; Default Value: 4
; Development Value: 5
; Production Value: 5
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.session.hash-bits-per-character
session.hash_bits_per_character = 5
; The URL rewriter will look for URLs in a defined set of HTML tags.
; form/fieldset are special; if you include them here, the rewriter will
; add a hidden <input> field with the info which is otherwise appended
; to URLs. If you want XHTML conformity, remove the form entry.
; Note that all valid entries require a "=", even if no value follows.
; Default Value: "a=href,area=href,frame=src,form=,fieldset="
; Development Value: "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=fakeentry"
; Production Value: "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=fakeentry"
; http://www.php.net/manual/en/session.configuration.php#ini.url-rewriter.tags
url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=fakeentry"