How to solve or debug my "could not find valid session key" error?

[dtygel]

Hi all,

I'm trying to configure a CIVICRM 4.2.9 fresh install over an also fresh install instance of Wordpress 3.4.2, and I can not save anything, not even enable the debugging mode, because of this annoying message "Error type: Could not find a valid session key.".

My cookies in firefox (last version on xubuntu) are enabled, and the domain in civicrm.settings.php is exactly the same as the one in the wordpress settings.

How can I find a way out of this situation? Is there a way to debug the real cause of the problem? Maybe it's a server problem because I'm on a shared server? (our domain is http://redmujeres.org).

Or is there a way I can simply disable this security verification to at least be able to do the basic configuration of the CIVICRM implementation?

I can't use a newer CIVICRM version, since the PHP of our server is 5.3.13. This limits me to CIVICRM 4.2.9 and Wordpress 3.4.2

    Thank you for some insight to get me out of this frustrating situation,

            daniel

[Kevin Cristiano]

Hi,

If you have PHP 5.3.13 you should be able to run WordPress version 3.9.1 as it only need 5.2.4 or greater http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/ and CiviCRM 4.4.6 as it need 5.2 or greater http://book.civicrm.org/user/current/initial-set-up/installation-and-basic-setup/

[dtygel]

Thanks for the reply, Kevin, but unfortunately it doesn't answer my question: I want to be able to run CiviCRM 4.2.9 with Wordpress 3.4.2, but I can't do anything: if i save any configuration of CiviCRM, I get this "could not find valid session key" error. My question was how to debug this (since I cannot even save the administrator settings to enable debug and backtracing!) or, if possible, how to disable this security measure from CiviCRM to be testing this session key.

Looking at the CiviCRM 4.4 documentation (http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Installation+and+Upgrades), it says clearly that we should have PHP 5.3.3+, so my server would not handle it (my server is 5.3.13). And I don't know if CiviCRM 4.2.9 (which runs on PHP 5.3.x) would work with Wordpress 3.9.1. So I prefer to use Wordpress 3.4.2, to follow the recommendations of CiviCRM installation guide for version 4.2 (available at http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC42/WordPress+Installation+Guide+for+CiviCRM+4.2 ).

So the question remains: can someone help me simply making CiviCRM 4.2.9 work on a fresh install of Wordpress 3.4.2?

Thanks for any help on this!

[joanne]

@dtygel

I am also not going to answer the question you asked (because I don't have the knowledge to do so) but want to clarify the situation regarding the installation guide.

PHP 5.3.3+ reads as PHP 5.3.3 plus  which means version 5.3.3 will work as will any higher 5.3 versions including 5.3.13 .

You seem to be interpreting it as PHP 5.3.3x ie you need at least PHP 5.3.30 which isn't the case.

I imagine Kevin was encouraging you to install the latest version of CiviCRM for two reasons:

• There have been many added features and improvements since then that you will not be able to access if you install a 4.2 version.
• You are more likely to be able to get help on the forum if you are using the latest version of CiviCRM. (The forum is staffed by volunteers and issues they may or may not have had installing and configuring CiviCRM 4.2 nearly two years ago are likely to have been forgotten.)  That doesn't mean that someone won't help you, just that the help will probably be fairly general.

@Kevin Cristiano

The book reference you refer to was missed during the proof-reading stage.  It is out of date.  You need PHP 5.3.3 + to run CiviCRM 4.4.

[dtygel]

Thanks for the quick and clear response, Joanne.

Ok, I'll wipe out the WP and CiviCRM installations and restart with Wordpress 3.9.1 and CiviCRM 4.4. I hope it will work!

I'll post here what came out from this new try.

Greetings from brasil,

daniel

[joanne]

Hi Daniel,

I thought I might head off a potential problem. The theme you choose may affect your ability to use CiviCRM  with wordpress. 

See http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,32793.0.html for an example of the type of problems that can arise.

[dtygel]

Hi Joanne and all,

   I only used the default theme. And about installing 4.4 over 3.9.1, now I have another problem: it is now obligatory to have trigger access in mysql, which my host doesn't offer!

   So now I'm stuck again... isn't there a way to install an older version of CiviCRM that does not NEED this trigger right?

      Thanks...

[inodecloud]

One of our clients have been having the same issues and after much investigation we have found a solution.

CiviCRM requires some file permissions and modules.

Also if you are receiving timestamp errors - make sure you set the default php and mysql timestamps to default UTC as all other do not work. By default the MySql timestamp also follows the system timestamp so usually all is required is a linux time and date change to UTC.

For this make sure you are running PHP version 5.4+ (you can check by typing php -v)

1. install the SOAP module (centos: yum install php-soap)
2. nano /etc/php.ini and insert or uncomment extension=soap.so and make sure session.gc_maxlifetime is set to 1440
3. restart the http service (service httpd restart)
4. cd to /var/lib/php directory and do a chmod 777 to sessions/

Hopefully that will work for you! 

[SandraL]

One of our clients have been having the same issues and after much investigation we have found a solution.
[SNIP]
4. cd to /var/lib/php directory and do a chmod 777 to session/

I spent the better part of two days trying to solve this problem after upgrading our test site to 4.6.2. Turns out we didn't have the /var/lib/php5/session directory on our servers. I created it and set the appropriate permissions, and *boom* everything worked again.  Thank you!