PHP can't remove cookie that was set by JavaScript - php

Question

Is it possible to remove cookie that was set on front via JS with PHP?
I'm doing this:
*FRONT (JS):
if ($.cookie('myCookie'))
{
console.log('Cookie.. :( ');
}
else
{
console.log('Yaay! No cookie!');
$.cookie('myCookie', '123');
}
BACK (PHP):
if (isset($_REQUEST['removeCookie']))
{
setcookie("myCookie", "", time()-3600);
unset($_COOKIE['myCookie']);
}
Result:
Seems like it's a mistery

Answer 1

You can't force the browser to delete the cookie file. You can, however, delete the contents of the cookie and expire it. Which is exactly what you're doing with your code above. I would probably tweak it slightly:
setcookie('myCookie', '', 1, '/'); // no need to calculate one hour ago.

Answer 2

If client time is wrong, setting cookie expire with time() function may not work as expected.
To unset cookie try,
setcookie('myCookie', 'blah blah', 1);
Source: A Comment in php setcookie docs

Answer 3

It would depend on the users PC deleting the cookie after the timeout. Personally I wouldn't trust that. I'd set the cookie to an empty value, or set it to DELETED then in your test code check if it is set and then check if the value is not blank or not DELETED

Answer 4

To completely remove cookie from browser by PHP, Try this code
$name = 'exists_cookie';
unset($_COOKIE[$name]);
// Set empty value
$blank = setcookie($name, '', time() - 3600);

Answer 5

Can someone run up this code on a test machine I'm a tad confused as to why cookie can be "unset" but cannot be value changed or expired etc in php it seems like setcookie() isn't working at all.
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.cookie.js"></script>
<script>
$.cookie('myCookie', '123' ,'/');
console.log("Created myCookie");
</script>
<?php
echo $_COOKIE['myCookie'];
//Comment/uncomment below as required
//setcookie("myCookie", "BLAH", time()-430000);
//$_COOKIE['myCookie'] = "BLAH";
setcookie('myCookie', '', 1, '/');
echo "<br />unset myCookie";
echo "<br />".$_COOKIE['myCookie'];
?>
<script>
console.log($.cookie('myCookie').length);
if ($.cookie('myCookie').length>0)
{
console.log('Cookie exists ');
console.log($.cookie('myCookie'));
}
else
{
console.log('Yaay! No cookie!');
}
</script>
You seem to be able to create a php <> JS cookie mismatch ie: 2 cookies called exactly the same but storing different data.