cakephp - session variable keeps acting strangely

Question

For reasons that elude me, a session variable that contains the customer's name will show up for a short while, and then disappear.

In the app_controller.php : beforeFilter()

if (isset($_SESSION['customer_name']) == false  || 
    strlen($_SESSION['customer_name']) == 0)
{
  $customer = $this->Customer->read(null, $auth['User']['customer_id']);
  $name = $customer['Customer']['fname'] . " " . $customer['Customer']['lname'];
  $this->Session->write('customer_name', $name);
  $this->set('name', $this->Session->read('customer_name'));
}
else
{
  $this->set('name', $this->Session->read('customer_name'));
}

I have tried variations on checking to see if the session is set such as

if ($this->Session->check('customer_name') == false)

Everything behaves in the same bizarre way, it will display in the view for a little while, and then disappear. Doesn't come back on closing browser or logging in again. Random small changes to that code seem to bring it back to life for a short time.

Answer 1

Not really sure what the problem is, but I'd start by removing $_SESSION calls. I'd also change

strlen($_SESSION['customer_name']) == 0

to

empty($_SESSION['customer_name'])

The only other thing I can think of is lowering your security level in /config/core.php, maybe you're losing session entirely?

Answer 2

Use $this->Session->read() instead of direct $_SESSION calls as cakephp can be storing the session somewhere else that where native PHP is expecting it.

Also, I don't really understand what you mean by 'disappear for a little while', if you stay on the same page and just keep hitting refresh does it show/dissapear randomly ?

Closing the browser could very well be the reason fot your session to be destroyed, also do you experience that behavior on different browsers ?

What are your Session.* sessings in app/config/core.php ?

Answer 3

This line:

$name = $customer['Customer']['fname'] . " " . $customer['Customer']['lname'];

Allows $name to equal " ", which means it has a strlen of 1, and is not empty. Not sure why it didn't get the customer data, but now I can check for that value.

Answer 4

normally the session will expire after a few minutes in cake. Look for this line in the config/core.php file:

Configure::write('Session.timeout'

and set it to like 999999999. That should solve the problem.

Answer 5

Note that sometimes FireFox extensions can cause session resets. Any time the User-Agent changes, the Session is reset.

I ran into this problem recently using a FireBug extension called FirePHP :
http://blog.kevburnsjr.com/cakephp-session-error-user-agent-must-be-consistent