session failure during session test

[wolrab]

I set up SquirrelCart on a hosted account with iPower, and it installed fine. That install was for testing purposes. I am now trying to set up SquirrelCart "for real" on a different account hosted with iPower, but it fails on the session test.

I get 2 errors, followed by the SC banner and Session Failure notice, followed by 2 more errors. The errors are:

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: open(/var/php_sessions/sess_5993d9b970593c04c7047086ea586407, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /hermes/bosweb/web085/b851/ipw.ctci/public_html/sc_install/install.php on line 91

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at /hermes/bosweb/web085/b851/ipw.ctci/public_html/sc_install/install.php:91) in /hermes/bosweb/web085/b851/ipw.ctci/public_html/sc_install/install.php on line 91

and:

Warning: Unknown(): open(/var/php_sessions/sess_5993d9b970593c04c7047086ea586407, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown(): Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/php_sessions) in Unknown on line 0

Please note, this is (or was) a new, clean install, following the manual step by step. What I don't understand is, the two hosting accounts are with the same service, so I would think that the settings on the servers should be the same.

By the way, when I look on the iPower site for help, it says:

To run PHP sessions, include the following code at the top of any PHP script that uses sessions:

session_save_path("your home directory path"/cgi-bin/tmp);
session_start();

    * To find "your home directory path": 

       1. Log into the PHP Scripting page for actual path to your home directory.
       2. Replace "your home directory path" with the path shown.

    * Set session_save_path to a directory within your cgi-bin: either /cgi-bin/tmp as in the example above or another directory as long as the absolute path is correct.

[Jamie]

In order for PHP sessions to work, they need to be stored in a session file in the path specified by the session.save_path setting in your php.ini file.

On 99.99% of servers out there, sessions work fine with no special attention required by you which is as it should be.

However, if they are not working you may need to follow their instructions for manually specifying your own setting for session.save_path in Squirrelcart's install script "install.php" and in the "squirrelcart/pre_common.php". However, that should really not be necessary.

Contact your web host, and tell them sessions aren't working on the server. Ask them if they require that you set that variable. You can certainly do so but then you are going to have to make those changes again every time you upgrade.

If they can't get sessions working correctly for you, open a helpdesk ticket and we can tell you what lines to add (and where) to fix the broken session support on your server.

[wolrab]

Jamie, thank you!

I did some further digging, and discovered that the "new" host account was set to PHP4 for default, where the "testing" host account was set for PHP5, and the folder for PHP sessions under PHP5 did not exist on the "new" host account. Once I made those changes, it worked! (Amazing :-)

Thanks for your help - it guided me to the solution!

[Jamie]

You're welcome. Glad it's working.