PHP Warning - Failed to write session data - Joomla! 3.7.2

[hexnext]

Dear users,

I am building a Joomla! website with a lot of code customization to my components. I also had to change a lot of strings to the translations files and now it's time to upgrade the Joomla and the components core, for which I need to set up a local development environment.

I decided to use VirtualBox to run a copy of my Joomla! 3.7.2 website on Ubuntu 16.04 with Apache 2.4.18, PHP 7, MySQL 5.7. I could recycle a previous DE where I was testing Drupal so I don't exclude a compatibility issue.

Summing up my migration procedure for you:

• I exported a database dump from the live site web hosting server and downloaded a whole copy of Joomla core, then placed all its content in /var/www/html.
• Created a new database and imported the db dump through Phpmyadmin
• I edited configuration.php so that it would match the new local server
• Made sure PHP session folder was writable and owned by the user under which Apache is running

When browsing the HTTP content of my server I get the notorious message

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Error displaying the error page

and the Apache itself error logs read

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PHP Warning:  session_write_close(): Failed to write session data (user). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/tmp) in /var/www/html/libraries/joomla/session/handler/native.php on line 194

Then I tinkered native.php boolean values as I read around the internet, disabled session management as a whole via configuration.php and a few more things but anytime I load any PHP file from Joomla's core I get the aforementioned error. Other PHP scripts work fine so I'm asking for some input from you as to what may be causing this issue.

[Per Yngve Berg]

Mod. Note: Why have you posted this in the Italian and not the English Forum?

You must set session.save_path to a writeable folder on the server.

[hexnext]

Sorry about the misplacement of this thread, you can move it to the English forum.

In my php.ini I set

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 session.save_path = "/tmp" 

I'm sure it's writable. Using the following command

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ls -l / 

in a terminal returns

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drwxrwxrwt   8 root root  4096 Dec 12 13:24 tmp

[Webdongle]

viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582860 please

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session.save_path = "/tmp" 

server /tmp or absolute/path/to/joomla/tmp

[hexnext]

Thanks a lot for referring to your script, it helped me figure out my problem in the connection to the database and other issues with files ownership. I also found this page https://stackoverflow.com/questions/524 ... m#21685655 useful in fixing it.

Very good script

[Webdongle]

It's not my script

btw the link you posted is about Ubuntu ... you may be interested in https://docs.joomla.org/Installing_Joom ... _Joomla.21 . Using Xampp and it's ftp server to create the folders (and transfer files) negates the need to chown them !!!

[chrisvarco]

Thanks for the input, however this seems very involved to install Joomla
Does anyone know of alternatives to install aside from this default method.

[Webdongle]

@chrisvarco

Manipulating files on a Ubuntu OS on a home computer is slightly different to manipulating files on a Windows PC. So localhost on a Ubuntu OS on a home computer is slightly different to localhost on a Windows PC.

[storm77]

looks like you need to change file permissions. Try 777

[sozzled]

I doubt that @storm77 will be posting to this forum in future but, even so, no-one ever recommends setting folder/file permissions to 777. This folklore has been debunked countless times; it's not even useful as a workaround. Setting permissions to 777 simply allows anyone (including hackers) to gain access to your web assets and you can say goodbye to all your hard work.

J! 3.7.2 is old; it's out of date and unsupported. If you're building a new website then please don't use a version of Joomla that was released nearly seven months ago. It takes 10 minutes to create a new website with the standard installation of Joomla. If it takes seven months to construct it then there's something very wrong.

The most reliable approach is to use a properly/professionally setup webhosting platform; if people can't build this setup themselves there are [literally] thousands of cost-effective places where they can obtain those services.