Lengthening PHP sessions

[TheDust]

I have searched wide and low for a solution on how to extend PHP sessions because I've built an application that demands users stay logged in all day, basically. I don't have access to change the php.ini settings because it is hosted with a third party. I've found a number of different scripts out there that utilize session_set_save_handler() to use custom session handlers to save session data in MySQL, but I've had bad results. The sessions act as before only when a user gets timed out, he/she can't log in anymore. You have to close out all browsers and then log in... then it will work again... until the session times out once again.

Here are two scripts that I have tried out:

http://www.code.dearneighbor.com/db_esession.html

http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/ying20000602.php3?page=1

Does anyone have a reccomended way to deal with this problem? It's very annoying.

 

[748323]

Why not use cookies? The third parameter of the setcookie function lets you determine when the cookie will expire.

 

[sleipnir214]

All of PHP's session-handling settings (listed in table 1 here) are listed as having a changeability of PHP_INI_ALL. This means that you can tweak those settings from php.ini, a .htaccess file, or from withing a script using ini_set().

The session-handling settings are described in faq434-4908. You can probably set your session settings as you need.


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[TheDust]

748323 -
I am trying to use cookies, but no luck thus far. Here's the code I'm using - am I doing this all wrong?

$expireTime = 60*60*8; // 8 hours
session_set_cookie_params($expireTime);
session_start();

sleipnir214 -
I have tried using ini_set in the past, but I think the server admins somehow changed their installation of PHP so that those session variables are unable to be overwritten - is that possible??

 

[sleipnir214]

It might be possible. Do you get an error, or does the change simply not take?


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[jpadie]

there is a post on the php.net site which may have a bearing on cookie use in ie.

http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function.session-set-cookie-params.php

 

[TheDust]

sleipnir214 - The ini_set() setting I include in the code don't throw an error... they simply do not take.

I'll check out that link, jpadie... still no luck with this issue...