PHP Can't retrieve cookie on page refresh - php

Hi I tried saving a cookie like the code below
$response = setcookie( "close_pop_up", true, $expiry);
and the response was TRUE. I also check the browser for the said cookie and it's existing. But when I refresh the browser and check for the cookie again although its still present in the browser it seems that I can't retrieve this value using the code below
isset($_COOKIE['close_pop_up']) && $_COOKIE['close_pop_up']
Upon using xdebug the variable close_pop_up is not under the $_COOKIE variable. May I know what I'm missing here?
Note: Cookie value still exist on the browser but can't be retrieve.

Related

Unable to access cookie after page redirect

I am setting a cookie containing a vlue in this format and redirecting to another page via the PHP header function. Here's the code,
setcookie("myCookie", $cookieValue, time() + $cookieLife, "/"); // cookieLife is expiration time in sec
header("Location: $baseURL/index.php"); // $baseURL is "http://localhost/mysite"
The cookie is getting set within the browser. However, I am unable to access the cookie value in the redirected page, i.e., "index.php". I am trying to access the cookie value with a simple echo like this,
echo $_COOKIE['myCookie'];
However instead of the cookie value, I get the following notice,
Notice: Undefined index: myCookie in /path/to/my/site/index.php on line 1
I have set the cookie path to "/" after looking at other solutions but am still unable to solve this.
Any help much appreciated.
EDIT :
I am testing this on XAMPP server, and the "mysite" here is actually an alias for another location on my hard drive. Could this be causing this issue?
I assume your cookie gets removed or dissapears once you've left the previous page.
Check if time() + $cookieLife is the desired time you want the cookie to live. The PHP setcookie function tells me that your $cookieLife is the time in seconds that you want your cookie to live, so make sure that it's the value you want it to be.
Use an extension to check your current cookies (and alter them if you need to). This way you can check and make sure if the cookie is living as long as you want it to (you already mentioned seeing the cookie being set, but I will include this just in case + for future visitors).
FireFox Extension: Web Developer
Chrome Extension: Cookies

Set cookie, nothing is being shown

This is taken directly from w3's website. I may not be understanding cookies correctly, but why is nothing displaying?
$expire=time()+60*60*24*30;
setcookie("user", "Alex Porter", $expire);
echo $_COOKIE["user"];
Your cookie will only be accessible when you refresh the page or navigate to a new one.
When your script loads, the HTML header fields for that page have already been set. The page will need to be rendered again (another HTTP transaction) before your cookie is available for use. Check PHP's documentation:
Once the cookies have been set, they can be accessed on the next page load with the $_COOKIE or $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS arrays.
check that your browser allows localhost / 127.x.x.x cookies or not ? if it allows then refresh the page. If you are using Google Chrome then you can see all browser cookies from here : chrome://settings/cookies navigate to localhost / 127.x.x.x to see your code has put cookies or not !
The variable $_COOKIE[] representates the state at the start of the script. That means that you have to wait on the next page request to see the variable. You could also add your variable manually to the global cookie variable $_COOKIE['user] = 'Alex Porter'; but the problem is that you are not sure that the browser really accepted the cookie.

Check if a PHP cookie exists and if not set its value

I am working on a multilingual site so I tried this approach:
echo $_COOKIE["lg"];
if (!isset($_COOKIE["lg"]))
setcookie("lg", "ro");
echo $_COOKIE["lg"];
The idea is that if the client doesn't have an lg cookie (it is, therefore, the first time they've visited this site) then set a cookie lg = ro for that user.
Everything works fine except that if I enter this page for the first time, the first and second echo return nothing. Only if I refresh the page is the cookie set and then both echo print the "ro" string I am expecting.
How can I set this cookie in order to see its value from the second echo on the first visit/page load of the user? Should be without needing to refresh the page or create a redirect.
Answer
You can't according to the PHP manual:
Once the cookies have been set, they can be accessed on the next page
load with the $_COOKIE or $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS arrays.
This is because cookies are sent in response headers to the browser and the browser must then send them back with the next request. This is why they are only available on the second page load.
Work around
But you can work around it by also setting $_COOKIE when you call setcookie():
if(!isset($_COOKIE['lg'])) {
setcookie('lg', 'ro');
$_COOKIE['lg'] = 'ro';
}
echo $_COOKIE['lg'];
Cookies are only sent at the time of the request, and therefore cannot be retrieved as soon as it is assigned (only available after reloading).
Once the cookies have been set, they can be accessed on the next page load with the $_COOKIE or $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS arrays.
If output exists prior to calling this function, setcookie() will fail and return FALSE. If setcookie() successfully runs, it will return TRUE. This does not indicate whether the user accepted the cookie.
Cookies will not become visible until the next loading of a page that the cookie should be visible for. To test if a cookie was successfully set, check for the cookie on a next loading page before the cookie expires. Expire time is set via the expire parameter. A nice way to debug the existence of cookies is by simply calling print_r($_COOKIE);.
Source
If you set a cookie with php setcookie you can see the set and the value of the cookie, as an example, with the developer tools of firefox just in time.
But you need to reload/load the same/next page if you wanna read, get or check the cookie and the value inside to work with that cookie in PHP.
With this example you can choose if you wanna reload the same page with PHP, HTML or JAVASCRIPT.
If the cookie is not accepted or cookies are disabled, a loading loop is obtained and the browser stops loading the page.
LONGVERSION WITH PHP 'header' RELOAD SAME PAGE:
<?php
$COOKIE_SET = [
'expires' => '0'
,'path' => '/'
// ,'domain' => 'DOMAIN'
,'secure' => 'true'
,'httponly' => 'true'
// ,'samesite' => 'Strict'
];
$COOKIE_NAME = "MYCOOKIE";
$COOKIE_VALUE = "STACKOVERFLOW";
if(!isset($_COOKIE[$COOKIE_NAME])){
setcookie($COOKIE_NAME, $COOKIE_VALUE, $COOKIE_SET);
// YOU NEED TO RELOAD THE PAGE ONCE
// WITH PHP, HTML, OR JAVASCRIPT
// UNCOMMENT YOUR CHOICE
// echo '<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=/">';
// echo '<script>window.location.replace("/");</script>';
header("Location: /");
exit;
}
else{
echo ($_COOKIE[$COOKIE_NAME]);
}
?>
SHORTVERSION WITH PHP 'header' RELOAD SAME PAGE:
if(!isset($_COOKIE['MYCOOKIE'])){
setcookie('MYCOOKIE', 'STACKOVERFLOW');
header("Location: /");
exit;
}
echo ($_COOKIE['MYCOOKIE']);

Cookies cannot be set the first time after clearing history in Firefox

I am trying to setup a session management with cookies in PHP.
My code is as follows:
if(empty($_COOKIE )) {
setcookie('session_id', md5(uniqid()), time()+(EXPIRE CONSTANT));
}
$session_id = isset($_COOKIE['session_id']) ? $_COOKIE['session_id'] : 0;
I will then check session_id for 0 and print an error message if cookies are disabled.
This works fine if cookies are really disabled.
The problem is, if a user clears his history the first time he visits
the site he will get the error message even if cookies are enabled.
Anyone have any clues about this ?
Thank you in advance
When you do the setcookie call, the cookies will be sent when the header is output to the browser. This means the cookie won't be available until the next page load (when the client sends the cookie back to the server). This is mentioned in the php manual for setcookie http://php.net/manual/en/function.setcookie.php:
setcookie() defines a cookie to be sent along with the rest of the HTTP headers. Like other headers, cookies must be sent before any output from your script (this is a protocol restriction). This requires that you place calls to this function prior to any output, including and tags as well as any whitespace.
Once the cookies have been set, they can be accessed on the next page load with the $_COOKIE or $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS arrays. Note, superglobals such as $_COOKIE became available in PHP 4.1.0. Cookie values also exist in $_REQUEST.
You won't be able to determine if cookies are enabled/disabled until the page has reloaded (from php). I think you'll have to do this check with javascript, or to stay in php do a redirect after setting the cookie for the first time, something like:
if(empty($_COOKIE)) {
if (isset($_GET['cookieset'])) {
// do error message, cookie should be set
}
setcookie('session_id', md5(uniqid()), time()+(EXPIRE CONSTANT));
header('location: http://mysite.com/index.php?cookieset=1');
exit;
}
$session_id = isset($_COOKIE['session_id']) ? $_COOKIE['session_id'] : 0;
#bencoder : I have done the test on iPad and Chrome/PC : you are right for iPad, you do need to refresh the page before you can read the cookie data, but on Chrome/PC, after deleting all cookies, if you set a new one from PHP, you can perfectly get the values directly on the first page load. Why ? There must be a more precise explanation. Why two different behaviors? Does the order of this output/availability of the data depend on the browser request to the server? Interesting to know...

Can't set PHP cookie on the same page

I'm having trouble setting cookies on the same page. I used cookies on my site and it works fine, I tend to set make the php in separate file. Now, I'm setting a cookie on the same page but it doesn't seem to work.
$expire = time()+5;
setcookie("rb_vote", 1, $expire);
then check if it is set
if(isset($_COOKIE["rb_vote"])) {
echo "IS SET";}
else {
echo "IS NOT SET"; }
It always says is not set. I tried doing this in page load but still doesn't work.
See the manual on setcookie() (emphasis mine):
Once the cookies have been set, they can be accessed on the next page load with the $_COOKIE or $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS arrays. Note, superglobals such as $_COOKIE became available in PHP 4.1.0. Cookie values also exist in $_REQUEST
Here is a workaround suggestion. It's imperfect because it can't guarantee the cookie actually gets set, but might do in your case.
I've just encountered this issue in Vanilla Forum. On the first page load, before a session has been established, a session cookie is created, but then every time the application wants to access the session variables (to add to them) it looks for the current session ID in $_COOKIE, which is not set until the next page load.
My workaround is to set the $_COOKIE element manually when the cookie is created.
// Create a cookie to identify the session.
// This line already exists. $Name is the cookie name.
// $SessionID is a random md5 ID that has just been generated.
setcookie($Name, $SessionID, $Expire, $Path, $Domain);
// Set the cookie for the remainder of the page. This is a workaround.
if (!isset($_COOKIE[$Name])) $_COOKIE[$Name] = $SessionID;
I've raised this as a fault with Vanilla (https://github.com/vanillaforums/Garden/issues/1568), as this workaround feels like a bit of a hack, but it certainly gets around the problem for now.
PHP5.3 Vanilla Forum Version 2.0.18.4

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