PHP Session Side-Effect Warning: Global Variables as Data Sources

The PHP session extension's reliance on global variables for data sources has been deprecated since PHP 4.2.3. This means that attempting to access or modify global variables within a PHP session can result in unpredictable behavior or warnings.

Warning Description

The specific warning you are receiving, "Unknown: Your script possibly relies on a session side-effect which existed until PHP 4.2.3," indicates that your code is still relying on this deprecated behavior.

Tracking Down the Problem

To find the source of this issue within your code, you can:

• Check for global variables with the same name as session variables: Look for code that assigns non-null values to global variables with the same name as session variables. For example:

$_SESSION['var1'] = null;
$var1 = 'something'; // Triggers the warning

• Disable session compatibility with PHP 4.2.3: You can add the following lines to your script to disable PHP's attempt to find and warn about global variables:

ini_set('session.bug_compat_warn', 0);
ini_set('session.bug_compat_42', 0);

You can also set these values in your php.ini or .htaccess files.

Note: Disabling session compatibility with PHP 4.2.3 may break code that expects to access global variables within the session context. It is recommended to determine the root cause of the issue and fix it properly rather than simply disabling the warnings.