Cookie在iPhone 5s（iOS 10.2.1）上不持久

Question

I know that many variants have been asked on this issue and I have tried nearly every suggested solution, but none have worked for me.

I am developing a website that uses php to set a cookie as follows:

setcookie('USER_ID', $user_id, time()+30*86400, '/', '.'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'], false, true);

The goal is to recognize a returning user, prompt them to confirm that it is them, and then proceed where they left off last time they visited the site. There is an another option that requires them to reenter their user id, so all is not lost... but it is aggravating that I cannot get this to work.

Here is the scenario when I visit the website using anything but Safari on iOS.

1. Launch browser and enter URL for my site.
2. Enter UserID (and other required info) to start (or resume) work on the site
3. Work on the site a bit
4. Enter URL for any other site.
5. Re-enter URL for my site... I am returned to where I left off.
6. Terminate browser
7. Relaunch browser and enter URL for my site.
8. I am returned to where I left off

Here is the scenario when I visit the website using Safari on iOS. (steps 1.-7. are the same)

8. Site requires me to reenter UserID (and other required info) to resume work on the site

The ONLY test platform that I tested that has this issue is Safari on iOS. I have tested Safari, Chrome, Firefox on both OSX and Windows, Chrome on iOS, and Chrome on Android. All of these work as expected. The real kicker is that I have also tested using the iPhone 5s simulator that comes with Xcode and that also worked as expected.

I have checked, double checked, triple checked my "Block cookies" setting on my (physical) iPhone and it is clearly "Allow Always"

I have connected the phone to my laptop using a USB cable and examined the cookies being set using WebInspector. The USER_ID cookie IS being set immediately after step 2. The expiration date is 30 days into the future. The HTTP flag is set. The path is '/'. The website is correct (I have tried both with and without the leading '.'). The cookie is still set after step 5. The cookie is GONE at step 7 (relaunch of Safari and navigation to my site).

I have been ripping my hair out over this for the last 2 days. Has anyone seen this before? Better yet, does anyone know what might be going on?

Thanks much, mike

Answer 1

I borrowed a friend's iPhone and found they had no issue with my site.

Came back to my phone and cleared all the browser history. It started working. Not sure what was in the history that caused this issue, but I'm moving on.