Some general comments on Apache::Session:

• I cannot find any help with the Apache::Session module, the docs don't have any kind of trouble shooting, and no site or list to get help.
  The author supports that module on the apache-modperl mailing list.
• Make sure you are updating something in the top level of the session hash, so Apache::Session will know that it has changed. The docs suggest putting a time stamp in the top level.
• If you're using undef %session, try changing it to untie %session and vice versa. I don't know why this sometimes helps, but I've found that changing from one to the other can fix problems with session data not saving. The Apache::Session docs say you should undef or untie your session hash as soon as you are done with it. I'd appreciate any comments on why undef or untie might behave differently.
• Try wrapping your undef %session or untie %session and your database disconnect in an END{} block to make sure it happens in all cases. Your script may be exiting without executing that code because of an error or a forgotten exit() somewhere else.
• Speaking of errors, you are running with strict and warnings turned on, right? Check the server error log and correct any errors from your script. I've found that error messages that seem totally unrelated to session handling can interfere with the saving of session data (usually by causing a premature exit, see above).

thank you both, very much!

I will join the mailing list, and post the problem there too. I think I did narrow it down...

I used Shell to run the site, and I get these errors:

[Sat Dec 28 10:02:21 2002] index.cgi: (in cleanup) Can't call method "release_all_locks" on an undefined value at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/Apache/Session.pm line 599 during global destruction.

and

index.cgi: (in cleanup) Can't call method "update" on an undefined value at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/Apache/Session.pm line 508 during global destruction.

The code in my index.cgi file is pretty simple:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
use CGI qw(:standard :cgi-lib escapeHTML);
use Mail::Sendmail;
#@ USE_STATEMENTS
use Digest::MD5;
use Crypt::CBC;
use Crypt::Blowfish;
use LWP::UserAgent;
push(@inc, "/home/mydom/my_mods");
use FRHWebDB::Session; # This contains the MySQL connections
#@ USE_STATEMENTS
ReadParse(\%in);
use vars qw($cookie $sess_id $sess_ref $page $logged_in %in);# These a
+re global

$sess_id = cookie ("session_id");
if ($sess_id eq "" && $in{sess_id} ne "") {
$sess_id = $in{sess_id};#if no cookies then it's in the url
}
$sess_ref = FRHWebDB::Session->open_with_expiration(undef, $sess_id) i
+f defined ($sess_id);#Open with Expriration

require "/home/mydom/site/data.conf";#This contains header
# information and other stuff, like menu and things like
# that

if ($in{pg} eq "quit" && defined($sess_ref)) {
    if ($sess_ref->attr ("remember_me") == 1) {
        $sess_ref->attr ("loggedin", 0);
        $message = qq~You have been Logged Out$nname_ws!<br><br>~;#$nn
+ame_ws is their nickname with a # space in front of it, if no nick na
+me then it's blank
# (Out!)
    } else {
        Delete_Session_Forever($sess_ref);
    }
}

if (!defined ($sess_ref))# no session yet, so create one.
{

    defined ($sess_ref = FRHWebDB::Session->open (undef, undef))
        or error ("Could not create new session: $FRHWebDB::Session::e
+rrstr");
    $cookie = cookie (-name => "session_id",
                        -value => $sess_ref->session_id(),
                        -path => url (-absolute => 1),
                        -expires => "+1y"
);#Create the cookie to put on user pc at top_header()

}
get_cookie_values($sess_ref) if defined ($sess_id);#Ok, get
# session values from the $sess_ref [apache::session].
get_company_values() if !defined($sess_id);#No session so
# just define the company variables($co_name and such)

require "/home/mydom/site/config.data";#Ok this one has all
# the javascripts, css and lots of configuration variables,
# and such. Plus a browser check.

#Set expiration of session if none exists.
$sess_ref->expires ($sess_ref->now() + (60*60*24*365)) if !defined ($s
+ess_ref->expires());
$Page_Dir = "/home/mydom/site/pages";#directory where all
# the pages in .conf files are stored.
$pg = $in{pg};

    $test_cookie2 = cookie ("session_id");
    if (!defined ($test_cookie2)) {#users pc has cookies
# Turned off, so add the session to every link and form
# using the variables I've defined here.
        $nocookies = 1;
        $inc_sess_id = "&sess_id=" . $sess_ref->session_id();
        $hidden_inc_sess_id = hidden(-name=>"sess_id", -value=>$sess_r
+ef->session_id());
    } else {#Ok, they do have cookies turned on!
        $nocookies = 0;
        $inc_sess_id = "";
        $hidden_inc_sess_id = "";
    }

if (!$pg || !-e "$Page_Dir/$pg.conf") {#No page so load home
    require "$Page_Dir/home.conf";
    $page .= $page_content;

} elsif(-e "$Page_Dir/$pg.conf") {#Ok there is a page so
# load it instead of home
    require "$Page_Dir/$pg.conf";
    $page .= $page_content;
}

    top_header("$title","","");#ok, now this is in
# data.conf, it is the header and it uses CGI.pm's header()
# start_html() etc.

#ok, now below closes the table and creates the right menu
# if any. right_menu() is defined in config.data
    $page .= qq~
&lt;/div />
&lt;/font />
&lt;/p />\n&lt;/td />~ . right_menu("in_table_cell","125",$overrideit)
+ . end_page_footer();
    print $page;
    exit; # Exit system.
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That is that. You can see the output at http://www.firstratehosting.com/t/index.cgi I'm not near finished with it,
I'm trying to get the sessions to work, then I'm going to add an affiliate program to it,
then finish the site.

It still does not work though...

If you need to also see the Session.pm code let me know, I'll post that too.

Thank you ever so kindly.
Richard

edited: Sat Dec 28 17:57:25 2002 by jeffa - broke out the Mop of Formatting +42 on this one

Hmmm... this is even more complicated than I thought. Your session handling is wrapped in another module. What is FRHWebDB::Session? Is that your module or someone else's?

The first thing I would recommend is adding a time stamp to the session every time the script is invoked.

Also, I don't see how your session is being untied. Maybe this is buried in FRHWebDB::Session but I suspect it's being left to happen when the Apache::Session object is cleaned up automatically at the end of the script. This may work most of the time but as the Apache::Session docs say, you should explicitly call undef or untie from your script.

I use an END block in my "index" script to handle this:

END
{
    $session->{'timestamp'} = localtime();
    undef $session;
    $dbh->disconnect;
}
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