PHP: Zend Session: don’t set it up in the Initalizer

I’ve just wasted a few hours trying to get Zend_Session (part of the PHP Zend Framework) working correctly – previously, on this codebase, I had “rolled my own” cookie and session management system, but I thought I’d do it properly and utilise the Zend_Session system and store it all in a database…

It didn’t work.

Short answer as to why my sessions weren’t saving into the database (even after I switched to using the “default” Zend_Session_SaveHandler_DbTable ) was that I was setting up the session within the “routeStartup” section of Initalizer.php (which is loaded, in MVC fashion, via the bootstrap.php file). Changing bootstrap.php to:

// Prepare the front controller.
$frontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
// Change to 'production' parameter under production environemtn
$frontController->registerPlugin(new Initializer('development'));
$maxSessionTime=60*60*24*30*6; // six months
Zend_Session::setSaveHandler(new My_Session_DbTable($maxSessionTime));
Zend_Session::rememberMe($maxSessionTime);

(i.e. take move the session savehandler out of the Initializer, but keep all the $thingy=new Zend_Session_Namespace whereever they are needed) means it started to work.

Most annoying thing: that there was no reason it didn’t work (no warnings, no errors, no documentation hints and no ‘out of place feeling’). Meh.