Admin bouncing to login - session problem?

[carlvt88]

On my site under admin I can log in, but I frequently get bounced back to the login screen.

At first I thought this was perhaps a super-orders 3 issue because it would happen when I hit the 'search' button, but I noticed a difference between my development site and my released site that makes me think this is a more general issue.

After searching and following similar threads, I suspect something's wrong with my sessions but I'm having trouble tracking it down. Some data points:

Released site:

• Bluehost
• PHP 5.2
• ZC 1.5.1
• Every page URL includes &zenAdminID=... in the URL address bar
• Occasionally bounces back to login screen with a new session ID showing in the URL bar

Development site:

• xampp
• PHP 5.4.4
• ZC 1.5.1
• URL bar does not show &zenAdminID=... and doesn't bounce back to login

I verified that the sessions are getting stored to the zen_sessions table (the config file specifies 'database' for SQL_CACHE_METHOD). I've also switched this to 'file' with no effect.

I've cleared caches and cookies and tried different browsers.

I switched the released site to PHP 5.4 (via cpanel), but now I get immediately bounced back to the login screen (with a new sessionID showing in the URL)

I don't see anything in the main webserver log or in the cache directory logs.

Any suggestions?

[lat9]

...
I don't see anything in the main webserver log or in the cache directory logs.

Any suggestions?

For Zen Cart v1.5.1, the debug log files are now located in the /logs directory; try checking there.

[carlvt88]

Thanks for that, I checked but that directory's empty (except for a single log a couple of months ago)

Other thoughts?

[Ajeh]

Can you do anything in the Admin without being taken back to the login screen?

If so, where are you when you get tossed back to the login screen?

If you are in one place where this happens ...

Do you *always* get tossed back to the login page? Or just sometimes?


If you have this happen from several places, where do it happen most often?


You mentioned that the zenAdminID follows you around ... has it *always* followed you around in the Admin?

Is your Admin *always* SSL or just when logging in?


Try to avoid you actually posting your answer, but if you can compare from your:
/your_secret_admin/includes/configure.php

to what is in your Configuration ... Sessions ... does the
Session Directory

match what is in your configure.php file?

Does that also match what is in your:
/includes/configure.php

for your Store?

[carlvt88]

Can you do anything in the Admin without being taken back to the login screen?

If so, where are you when you get tossed back to the login screen?

If you are in one place where this happens ...

Do you *always* get tossed back to the login page? Or just sometimes?

If you have this happen from several places, where do it happen most often?

Yes - for the most part, things work well. I can repeatedly reproduce the jump to login when I hit one of the search / submit buttons on one of the superOrders pages (example, fill in the criteria and hit search). I was on the fence on whether to post in the plugins sections or as a general question because of the way the URL shows the zenAdminID on each page - and in the url the session number changes when I jump to login. Since I don't have that on my local system, I was leaning to some issue with sessions.

You mentioned that the zenAdminID follows you around ... has it *always* followed you around in the Admin?

Is your Admin *always* SSL or just when logging in?

I don't think the zenAdminID has ever shown in the URL - but, I can't say that for certain. I do know it doesn't show on my xampp system which is working correctly. I've also disabled SSL for all admin for the purposes of debugging this.

Try to avoid you actually posting your answer, but if you can compare from your:
/your_secret_admin/includes/configure.php

to what is in your Configuration ... Sessions ... does the
Session Directory

match what is in your configure.php file?

Does that also match what is in your:
/includes/configure.php

for your Store?

Dang - I thought you found it - it *was* pointing to my old account name (recently transferred site to new account name). But, I realigned all three places (two configure.php's and the Session Directory), cleared browser cache, and I still see the zenAdminID in the URL and get the login bounce. I also don't see any files getting written to this directory. I have permissions 777 on this directory - am I missing something else to get the sessions to write there?

[Ajeh]

On the forms there is a security token that has to be sent and without it, you will have to login ...

While I could be off on this ... 10 to 1 the super orders you are using is not up to date with the security token ...

See if the support thread either talks about this or if there is a newer version available for you ...

[carlvt88]

Finally found it - Long story short there was an issue in my configure.php file. When I moved from a subdomain to a primary domain, my subdirectory redirection wasn't working the same (no wildcards on the primary domain).

This meant changing my server and directory definitions, where subdir is a parent directory to the catalog.

  define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.domainname.com/subdir');
  define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://secure.bluehost.com/~myname/subdir');
  define('HTTP_CATALOG_SERVER', 'http://www.domainname.com/subdir');
  define('HTTPS_CATALOG_SERVER', 'https://secure.bluehost.com/~myname/subdir');

  define('DIR_WS_ADMIN', '/zencartdirectory/admin/');
  define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/zencartdirectory/');

[DrByte]

Finally found it - Long story short there was an issue in my configure.php file. When I moved from a subdomain to a primary domain, my subdirectory redirection wasn't working the same (no wildcards on the primary domain).

This meant changing my server and directory definitions, where subdir is a parent directory to the catalog.

  define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.domainname.com/subdir');
  define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://secure.bluehost.com/~myname/subdir');
  define('HTTP_CATALOG_SERVER', 'http://www.domainname.com/subdir');
  define('HTTPS_CATALOG_SERVER', 'https://secure.bluehost.com/~myname/subdir');

  define('DIR_WS_ADMIN', '/zencartdirectory/admin/');
  define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/zencartdirectory/');

That would definitely be a primary contributor to the zenAdminID problem.