Can't get login success to view - php

Question

so I've put in the write credentials to the login form, and it's supposed to redirect me to the home.php page which displays a successful login, however when I hit submit, the page just refreshes and doesn't do anything. If I change what the login_action loads after login it does it right, but then if I tell it to load home.php it just does nothing....Any Help?
Here's my home.php code:
<?php
session_start() ;
if( !isset($_SESSION['username']))
{
require('login_tools.php');
load();
}
$page_title = 'Home';
echo"<h1>HOME</h1>
<p>You are now logged in, {$_SESSION['username']}</p>";
echo'<p>Logout</p>';
?>
and the login_action.php
<?php
if ( $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST')
{
require ('../connect_db.php') ;
require ('login_tools.php') ;
list ($check, $data) =
validate($dbc, $_POST['username'], $_POST['password']);
if ($check )
{
session_start() ;
$_SESSION['user_id'] = $data['user_id'] ;
$_SESSION['username'] = $data['username'] ;
load('home.php') ;
}
else {$errors = $data ;}
mysqli_close( $dbc);
}
include('login.php');
?>
**login.php:**
<?php
$page_title = 'Login';
if ( isset( $errors ) && !empty( $errors))
{
echo'<p id="err_msg">Oops! There was a problem:<br>';
foreach ( $errors as $msg )
{
echo " - $msg<br>";
}
echo 'Please try again or Register</p>';
}
?>
<h1>Login</h1>
<form action="login_action.php" method="POST">
<p>
Username: <input type="text" name="username">
</p><p>
Password: <input type="password" name="password">
</p><p>
<input type="submit" value="Login" >
</p>
</form>

Answer 1

According to your code it is supposed to refresh. Indeed, it is not a refresh, it is the infinite loading of login.php by include it in the end of login_action.php
You should use header redirect instead of including as follows:
<?php
$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$uri = rtrim(dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']), '/\\');
if ( $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST')
{
require ('../connect_db.php') ;
require ('login_tools.php') ;
list ($check, $data) =
validate($dbc, $_POST['username'], $_POST['password']);
if ($check )
{
session_start() ;
$_SESSION['user_id'] = $data['user_id'] ;
$_SESSION['username'] = $data['username'] ;
$extra = 'home.php';
header("Location: http://$host$uri/$extra");
exit;
}
else {
$errors = $data ;
$_SESSION['Errors'] = $errors;
$extra = 'login.php';
header("Location: http://$host$uri/$extra");
exit;
}
mysqli_close( $dbc);
}
?>
In login.php
$page_title = 'Login';
if ( isset( $_SESSION['Errors'] ) && !empty( $_SESSION['Errors'])){
$errors = $_SESSION['Errors'];
//continue your code...
// at the end of the code:
unset($_SESSION['Errors']);

Answer 2

Based on your reply, i guess session doesn't get anything to load home. It is from:
$_SESSION['user_id'] = $data['user_id'] ;
$_SESSION['username'] = $data['username'] ;
this makes validate get unvalidated to send the session.
Try to change the $data into variables, as follows:
$_SESSION['user_id'] = $user_id ;
$_SESSION['username'] = $username ;
to show the message, you can use meta refresh to encertain that it really sends the login data.
If this not works, there must be something wrong with the grabbing data from the connection.

Answer 3

<?php # LOGIN HELPER FUNCTIONS.
# Function to load specified or default URL.
function load( $page = 'login.php' )
{
# Begin URL with protocol, domain, and current directory.
$url = 'http://' . $_SERVER[ 'HTTP_HOST' ] . dirname( $_SERVER[ 'PHP_SELF' ] ) ;
# Remove trailing slashes then append page name to URL.
$url = rtrim( $url, '/\\' ) ;
$url .= '/' . $page ;
# Execute redirect then quit.
header( "Location: $url" ) ;
exit() ;
}
# Function to check email address and password.
function validate( $dbc, $email = '', $pwd = '')
{
# Initialize errors array.
$errors = array() ;
# Check email field.
if ( empty( $email ) )
{ $errors[] = 'Enter your email address.' ; }
else { $e = mysqli_real_escape_string( $dbc, trim( $email ) ) ; }
# Check password field.
if ( empty( $pwd ) )
{ $errors[] = 'Enter your password.' ; }
else { $p = mysqli_real_escape_string( $dbc, trim( $pwd ) ) ; }
# On success retrieve user_id, first_name, and last name from 'users' database.
if ( empty( $errors ) )
{
$q = "SELECT user_id, first_name, last_name FROM users WHERE email='$e' AND pass=SHA1('$p')" ;
$r = mysqli_query ( $dbc, $q ) ;
if ( #mysqli_num_rows( $r ) == 1 )
{
$row = mysqli_fetch_array ( $r, MYSQLI_ASSOC ) ;
return array( true, $row ) ;
}
# Or on failure set error message.
else { $errors[] = 'Email address and password not found.' ; }
}
# On failure retrieve error message/s.
return array( false, $errors ) ;
}