PHP会话随机过期

Question

to begin I'd like to explain what I'm trying to accomplish. So I have a system where if a user logs in, their username gets stored in $_SESSION['username'] . On each page I have session_start(); and I then often check to see if(isset($_SESSION['username'])) to show different things.

This all works great, except for the fact that either the session expires before the timeout, or the $_SESSION['username'] variable gets unset before the timeout, causing the system to think that the user needs to be logged out. I would really like to add that this happens at random!

I can spend 10 minutes on the website with different intervals between interaction and nothing happens, next thing I know, I get kicked out twice in 3 minutes.

I can verify that session.cookie_lifetime = 0 (Which means that it won't expire until the browser closes) and that session.gc_maxlifetime = 1200 (Which doesn't matter, as I have set my session save folder in a different location than tmp).

The only thing I can think of that might be an issue is this code in the login section once the password has been verified:

$_SESSION['username'] = $usernameInput;
session_write_close();
header("Location: index.php");

I know that using header means the session variables do not get saved, as it cuts of the document, but that is why I use session_write_close(); to save these variables. And please keep in mind: Everything works after this! I can see my username once I get to index.php.

There are some SO threads that result in the user saving session variables and stuff on a database, but I'd rather fix it without having to do that.

EDIT: So I reintroduced a function to count timeout for sessions and that works, but I have made a discovery. I've looked into the network section of the browser and in XHR I look for the sessions and the cookies and stuff. Something weird happens where the website does a GET request to my logout.php file.

So I looked at what could cause this. I have 2 logout buttons that get echo'd by PHP and I gave them each different href links. I narrowed it down to this PHP and HTML. Last time I checked, HTML doesn't automatically go to href's in it's code. And I doubt PHP does this.

if(isset($_SESSION['username'])){
            echo "<div class='navProfile navButton'><img class='navProfileIcon' src='images/angerypigeon.jpg' alt=''><h3 class='navProfileUsername'>" . $_SESSION['username'] . "</h3><h3 class='navProfilePosts'>Posts: 102</h3><a class='navProfileLogout' href='php_tools/logoutbutton2.php'>Logout</a></div>";
            echo "<button class=\"modalButton upload navButton\" id=\"uploadButton2\" type=\"button\" name=\"button\" style=\"margin-left: auto\">Upload</button>";
        }
        else {
            echo "<button class='navButton' type=\"button\" name=\"button\" onclick=\"location.href = 'login.php'\">Login</button>";
        }

When I check my XHR fields in the browser, it sends a GET request for logoutbutton2 . How can I prevent this from happening? I am not clicking on the button myself. It gets sent randomly.

Answer 1

Since I can not look at all the code I can only speculate. What could possibly kill the session at "random".

Maybe you have:

• something like $_SESSION['username']='' or $_SESSION='' in your code. Check it again.
• some code ist spitting some chars in front of session_start ?
• a wierd heuristic adblock-privacy-whatnot-browser plugin blocks your session cookie
• an antivirus firewall on your end does some heuristic cookie killing
• some cleanup job on the server kills the session (very unlikely)
• some antivirus on the server kills the session (very unlikely)
• are you behind a corporate thread management gateway, those things can eat cookies (very unlikely)
• something ist randomly crashing and restarting the server and killing sessions on the way (very unlikely)
• javascript could possibly interfere with your session cookie (very unlikely)

Answer 2

First, check if SET-COOKIE was correctly set in your request header. Check the lifetime (client-side).

---

Sometime files about user session were not created correctly. Check your session_save_path and check this folder if new files were made.

• documentation about session_save_path .

Answer 3

The issue seems to have fixed itself. It truly is a random and unpredictable thing..