PHP Sessions Not Storing/Saving - php-fpm/nginx/phpmyadmin/centos6

Question

I have recently moved to a new server and now all of a sudden my PHP session variables are not storing.

I have installed nginx and php-fpm and both seem to work as I can perform other php operations.

I know my code is fine, because it has worked perfectly on the past 5 servers I have deployed it on.

For some reason I am unable to store session variables.

phpMyAdmin returns this

"phpMyAdmin - Error Cannot start session without errors, please check errors given in your PHP and/or webserver log file and configure your PHP installation properly. Also ensure that cookies are enabled in your browser."

Here is my php error log which shows some errors in regards to the session storage.



[14-Jan-2016 06:41:47] PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /usr/share/nginx/athenalayer/control-panel/checklogin.php on line 3
[14-Jan-2016 06:41:47] PHP Warning:  Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:41:47] PHP Warning:  Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:41:50] PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /usr/share/nginx/athenalayer/control-panel/checklogin.php on line 3
[14-Jan-2016 06:41:51] PHP Warning:  Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:41:51] PHP Warning:  Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:42:44] PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /usr/share/nginx/athenalayer/control-panel/checklogin.php on line 3
[14-Jan-2016 06:42:44] PHP Warning:  Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:42:44] PHP Warning:  Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:16] PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /usr/share/nginx/athenalayer/test.php on line 2
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:16] PHP Warning:  Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:16] PHP Warning:  Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:18] PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /usr/share/nginx/athenalayer/test.php on line 2
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:18] PHP Warning:  Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:18] PHP Warning:  Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:23] PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /usr/share/nginx/athenalayer/control-panel/checklogin.php on line 3
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:23] PHP Warning:  Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:23] PHP Warning:  Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:27] PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in /usr/share/nginx/athenalayer/control-panel/checklogin.php on line 3
[14-Jan-2016 06:49:28] PHP Warning:  Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ocjdclils55719l5ri9ue5aqu3, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0

I have done some research and it seems that it may be a possible permission error? There isn't much documentation or any for that matter regarding this problem. It seems to be a very unique problem especially considering I have done many web server configurations and this is the first time I am experiencing this.

I was hoping maybe someone here with a little more expertise could shed some light.

Answer 1

You need to flush your browser cache, delete the cookies for the server/host and then retry loading phpMyAdmin.

If you want to go all out, clear out the session folder on the server as well.

One possible reason for this is a session data mismatch between the browser and the webserver causing it to not be able to pull out the required session info and dumping this error dialogue on your lap.

Another problem can be due to file and folder permissions; You can try changing the folder permissions:

sudo chmod 777 /var/lib/php/session/

This will set full read/write permissions on the PHP sessions folder.

Note: the php/session/ folder may be in a different location on some servers. Check your php.ini for your session path.