php.net |  support |  documentation |  report a bug |  advanced search |  search howto |  statistics |  random bug |  login

go to bug id or search bugs for

Bug #11213 error_log() call causes warning "Cannot send session cache..."
Submitted: 2001-05-31 09:53 UTC Modified: 2001-05-31 12:58 UTC
From: uw at netuse dot de Assigned:
Status: Closed Package: Session related
PHP Version: 4.0.5 OS: SunOS 5.7
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
Welcome back! If you're the original bug submitter, here's where you can edit the bug or add additional notes.
If you forgot your password, you can retrieve your password here.
Password:
Status:
Package:
Bug Type:
Summary:
From: uw at netuse dot de
New email:
PHP Version: OS:

 

 [2001-05-31 09:53 UTC] uw at netuse dot de 
To debug my latest PHPLib commits I needed
some output before session_start() without sending
any headers to the browser. Well, I thought of using 
error_log() that should not output anything but write 
to my logfile. I changed my php.ini to: 

display_errors = Off    
log_errors     = On    
error_log      = [mypath]/logs/

Now I hoped that I'd be allowed to use error_log() before 
session_start(), here's a simple example:

<?php
error_log("I don't like that!");

session_start();
session_register("counter");

print ++$counter;

error_log("counter = $counter");
error_log(" ")
?>

But PHP bailed at me in the error_log:

I don't like that!
PHP Warning:  Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent in [mypath]/bug.php3 on line 4
[mypath]/bug.php3(4) : Warning - Cannot s
end session cookie - headers already sent
PHP Warning:  Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent in
[mypath]/bug.php3 on line 4
[mypath]/bug.php3(4) : Warning - Cannot s
end session cache limiter - headers already sent
counter = 1 

Hmm, did I forget a auto_prepend file, could I be doing any output before session_start()? Let's check the results of a command line telnet request.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 13:38:27 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) PHP/4.0.5-dev mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.5a
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.0.5
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

1Connection closed by foreign host.

No, I did not output anything before session_start(). Then I uncommented the first error_log() call and everything was just fine. The error log showed:

counter = 1

counter = 2

... 

The problem is the same with 4.0.4pl1 (as one could expect).

Patches

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2001-05-31 12:58 UTC] sniper@php.net 
Can't reproduce with PHP 4.0.6. 

--Jani
 [2003-04-14 05:21 UTC] sumairi at hotmail dot com 
I have the same problemwith PHP4.3.1, i don't include/require any files before calling session_start(). I get this error even with a test PHP file with one line having only "session_start()".

I found out that this is because the PHP file is saved with UTF-8 encoding, i tried to save it with different encodings (using Windows Notepad). Only when I save the file with ANSI encoding it will work.

This is different than "Content-Type" header. Go to Notepad open any txt file, and click file/save as.., see the encoding option.
 [2004-05-12 08:49 UTC] ckathir_nkl at yahoo dot co dot in 
Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php:6) in d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php on line 10

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php:6) in d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php on line 10

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php:6) in d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php on line 17

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php:6) in d:\web\shopcart_new\echopay.php on line 18
 
PHP Copyright © 2001-2025 The PHP Group
All rights reserved. 		Last updated: Fri Oct 31 15:00:01 2025 UTC