PHP session expiring too early

I have an issue, my apps sessions are expiring unexpectedly after about 15 minutes. I need them to expire after 4 hours.

The server is Centos 5.5, PHP is 5.3.2.

Below is my code (included in an global header).

<?php
session_name('MobileSuiteHQ');
if(!session_id()) {
    session_start();
}
ini_set('memory_limit', '512M');
ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime', 14400000);
ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime', 14400000);
ini_set('session.gc_divisor', 1000);
ini_set('session.use_cookies', 0);
ini_set('max_execution_time', 300);
ini_set('session.name','MobileSuiteHQ');
?>

My .htaccess file contains:

php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 14400000
php_value session.cookie_lifetime 14400000
php_value session.use_cookies 0
php_value session.gc_divisor 1000

Any help or insight would be greatful.

EDIT: I was unable to login when i updated my .htaccess file, the session wasn’t starting. So I have now removed:

php_value session.use_cookies 0

which now allows me to login.

Answer

On initial examination, I’d lower your gc_maxlifetime and cookie_lifetime settings. I suspect that 14400000 is a little high for PHP to cope with (in theory, a 32-bit OS should be able to go up to 2147483647, but this could still be a factor).

If you only need 4 hours of lifetime, then 14400 would be a perfect setting, and may resolve your problem for the reason mentioned above.