Posted by John Howie on 02/24/06 19:06

I've found very unusual behavious when using sessions on two different
servers.

I'm using sessions to handle simple log in. When the form submits the
values are checked against a MySQL table. If a match exists two session
variables are created: $_SESSION['db_is_logged_in'] and
$_SESSION['user']. Each page checks if the session variable
'db_is_logged_in' is set and is true, display the page otherwise use
header to redirect to an error page.

This worked all well and fine locally, and on one other server.
Recently I moved server and since then the whole authentication process
has been behaving unusually. Sometimes (when logged in) you are taken
to the error page, but your username is still displayed in the menu.
Clicking the link a few more times and eventually the page will display
correctly.

My question is are there any options or reasons why what has previously
worked fine could now be so unreliable? I am using session_start(), and
this worked very well on one server, why not another? The versions of
PHP are even the same (4.3.2).

This has had me stumped for a few days now and I'm no closer to solving
it, I'd really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

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