Django SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN

Question

I'm seeing something mysterious with the SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN setting in django.

Normally, when I have this set to ".mydomain.net" it works fine. But occasionally cookies don't seem to be being set, because when I log in, I'm not remembered in the session and I become AnonymousUser when I get to the next page.

In these circumstances, if, I change my settings file so that SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN is now None or "", then the site behaviour returns to normal. If I change SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN back to mydomain, the problem returns.

Any ideas? Is this likely to be a silent failure in the settings? Or could it be something to do with my server configuration? Or the machine I'm accessing the site from?

Answer 1

Check your cookies in your browser (in FF, Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Something about cookies) and see if they are correctly set. Search for your domain, and see if you have the sessionid cookie is set.

Answer 2

It might be a browser issue as Paul suggests. However, I'd be tempted to do some HTTP analysis with Firebug or Live HTTP Headers in Firefox. Is it trying to set the cookie correctly?