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phpsessionsmartycmsmadesimple

CMS Made Simple: Session getting reset between page views

I have a form in a template which is posted to a PHP script. This script sets some variables in the $_SESSION array, then redirects back to the same page using the standard:

header("Location: index.php?page=enquiry-form");

The problem is that whenever the page loads after refirection, the session only contains the following three variables:

  • cmsuserkey
  • cms_admin_user_id
  • cms_admin_username

...all of mine have disappeared.

  • I'm calling session_start(); in my php script
  • I've set the config option: $config['use_smarty_php_tags'] = true;

The user doesn't need to be logged in to use the form (in fact the site doesn't use logins at all).

Can anyone suggest anything I'm not doing/doing wrong?

Thanks, Rich

Solution

  • I've had a similar problem (though I wanted to use data from the CMS Made Simple session in another php-file). For me the cause was the following (as stated in my comment on the question):

    CMS Made Simple (CMS from now on) does makes its own session name. This means that when you run session_start() in a separate php-file, it will not have the same session name. Therefore, the php-file won't be able to access CMS's session data, and CMS won't be able to access the php-file's session data.

    The solution logically follows from the cause, you need them both to use the same session name. CMS sets its session name in include.php which should be in the app's root folder.

    $dirname = dirname(__FILE__);
...

$session_key = substr(md5($dirname), 0, 8);

#Setup session with different id and start it
@session_name('CMSSESSID' . $session_key);

    So, in your php file you will need to do the following (before calling session_start();):

    //Substitute the string $dirname for the result of __FILE__ in **include.php**!!!
$dirname = '/data/web/somefolder/someotherfolder/'
$session_key = substr(md5($dirname), 0, 8);
@session_name('CMSSESSID' . $session_key);
//Now you can call session_start();

    Doing this lets your php-file access CMS's Session. If you use any plugins that put essential data in the session, you'll want to be careful not to erase any of that data.

    NOTE: I use CMS version 1.8.2, this solution may not work if you use a different version.