UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads Version 7/8 Support Users unable to register / stuck on birthdate

I have 2 out of my newest 20 trainees tell me they can't register in the forums. In both cases they put in the birthdate and it starts sending them in loops. They tried clearing their cookies and rebooting their machine. We have other users registering so it's not a global issue. Any ideas?

While researching this I looked in my sessions directory and there are recent files in there - but also a bunch from 2007. Can I just delete those 2007 ones?

I just tried it, and had the problem as described. This laptop is running IE8, but I can try a couple of other computers and browsers later.

Same thing on my regular computer with Firefox. Maybe I'm just too old.

The problem actually comes up AFTER the birthdate. It goes on to the next step, where one clicks to accept the board rules. Then it goes back to the birthdate.

OK. Now it let me move on to the next step.

Usually this is due to an incorrect permission on the sessions directory. Check the permissions on that directory, and also check to make sure that there are files being created within.

Guess I need to read a bit more. If you have old ones in there, it could be that they are not being periodically purged and causing issues. I'd actually just remove all of the files and then make sure they are getting recreated and then check if that fixes the issue.

I had this problem for a while, had to manually delete the files in the sessions folder periodically, but the server seems to be cleaning itself correctly now and I haven't had any issues.

OK I have 4,812 files in there and 1,720 of them are from 2007, the rest are from "right now".

I just backed up and deleted the 2007 files. Now I have 3207 files left, all with times within the past hour or so.

I'll note I have both an index.htm and an index.html - is that normal? The index.htm is dated 2007.

So are you thinking I really should delete these sessions that are active?

I waited until now and just deleted all the session files. Should I delete that old index.htm file too?

Leave the index.htm file in there. It sounds like maybe your server isn't purging the session files automatically. Since you cleaned them all out, I'd keep an eye on it and see if the get cleaned up now.

I just checked - right now there are 5,036 objects in the sessions directory with the oldest one at 3:40pm and the newest at 5:16pm (i.e. right now). I cleared out the files at 6:30am so the system is definitely cleaning up files in general. It seems to leave around files for about 1.5 hrs. Is that what it's meant to do?

This is what it was doing before too.

Well the session files are just that. So depending on how busy your site is depends on how many session files you may have at one point.
The issue is if you see very old file date stamps on them.

But I guess the real question is by clearing the session files did it correct your problem?

To reiterate what Ruben said:
When you access your site and login a session file is created, it'll linger around until the server purges it at whatever interval PHP is configured to remove it.

These files won't immediately delete themselves, they're not meant to, they will be around for a while to house information about the session.

If you'd like to read about them I'd suggest looking at the PHP Manual: Sessions

Right I guess my point is that what it's doing now is what it's always been doing as far as I can tell. I will check again with my editors but it doesn't seem like it fixed anything.

Lisa. If you're still having the same problem with people unable to register, go ahead and open up a support ticket and we can check into it to see what's going on.