Integrating Simple Machines Forum in my custom membership site - login not working?

Question

Hi guys I'm trying to integrate simple machines forum into my custom made membership website.

I'm using the SMF API which is available here at http://download.simplemachines.org/?tools.

The thing is that its working on my localhost testing server - however on my online server where the system is hosted - its not working.

I have set it up so that when the user log into my own custom CMS membership site, he/she is logged in automatically to his/her corresponding account on the forum. However it works on my localhost but online its not working at all.. I log into my site and then browse to the forum to find out I havent been logged in there :( - I think its not creating the cookies or registering the session.. where should I look here. Please do help.

EDIT ================

I think I've traced the problem - for some reason the forum is maintaining a different session than the session started on my website. This is strange as the forum is only in a subfolder on the same site. WHat should I check for here?

Answer 1

The site is working locally but not online means most likely that there is some settings difference between the two, certain things might be disabled on the server:

• Are you using short tags? Are they also enabled on the online server?
• Are session cookies getting written successfully?
• Have you put up session_start() on top of your script?
• Try using session_save_path which gets/sets the current session save path
• What are the server requirements of SMF API?
• Compare the settings of local and online server through phpinfo()
• You might want to ask the server-support team if none of the above solved your problem.

Answer 2

If you are using SMF and want to create a login to SMF, but outside of the SMF forum (which is how I understand it), than you'll want to use the SSI.php file that is bundled with SMF. You should do a require or require_once on it, very first thing at the very top of the page.

Also, open up SSI.php and I believe there is a ssi_login() and ssi_logout() function, use these functions to show a Login area for people. This should include the entire textboxes and display for it also.

Alternatively, you can ask for support over at SMF Community Support and/or review these SSI Examples/Tutorials

Furthermore, if it's a SESSION Issue, try this...

<?php
require_once('/home/filepath/public_html/forum_directory/SSI.php');
$_SESSION['login_url'] = 'http://www.domain.com' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
$_SESSION['logout_url'] = 'http://www.domain.com' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
?>

Change www.domain.com to the path of your site and the path to your SSI.php.