Symfony Session Values Lost - php

Question

I'm experiencing a problem with symfony's session values handling.
Basically, the problem is this, I have a action filter activated that takes the values of the module and action executed and stores them in the session superglobal.
This is my filter's code:
<------BEGIN CODE---------------->
class getPrevModuleActionFilter extends sfFilter
{
public function execute ($filterChain)
{
//---------------Code to execute *BEFORE THE ACTION* execution---------------
if ($this->isFirstCall()) # Execute this filter only once
{
// Filters don't have direct access to request & user objects => Use context object to get them
$request = $this->getContext()->getRequest();
$user = $this->getContext()->getUser();
if($request->getParameter('action') !== "setCulture")
{
$_SESSION['prev_module'] = "M=".$request->getParameter('module');
$_SESSION['prev_action'] = "A=".$request->getParameter('action');
}
}
//---------------Execute next filter in the chain---------------
$filterChain->execute();
//---------------Code to execute *AFTER THE ACTION* execution, before the rendering---------------
//(...)
}
}
<------END CODE---------------->
The weird thing is that if I do a print_r on the front web controller at the very last minute I see that:
When an action that's not 'setCulture' all goes well (ie, the session gets previous module and action as it should)
When action 'setCulture' gets executed: Symfony stores following values in session:
Array (
[prev_module] => M=
[prev_action] => A=
(etc)
)
ie, it looses the values of session for those 2 entries.
I tried using different namespaces, I tried using symfony's setAttribute from sfUser to handle session values. At the end I tried the raw session handling of PHP. Apparently it seems that the shutdown methods of the factories related to user and storage of session values mess up the session values!
I need your help, please.
SPECS:
Symfony version: 1.4.6
PHP: 5.3
I have Symfony's cache disabled
I'm running the code with the frontend_dev.php controller

Answer 1

Well, I guess Symfony messes up SESSION and COOKIES when used in filters.
I ended up creating my own filter mechanism that performs actions for an entire app.
So, to clarify, my choice was:
create a class autoloaded in root lib folder, that has a static method called 'fe_app_init'
add a preExecute method to the actions of each module in FE app that uses fe_app_init from that class
Now the fe_app_init() handles the values in SESSION rightfully.
It's a shame that Symfony 1.4 has a tool such as filters but then messes up SESSION and COOKIES handling in those.