Session Variables Lose Value Before Timeout

[grant]

I've got some ASP pages where the session variable values get blown away BEFORE
the session times out. I can't understand it. For example: if a user
logs into my ASP app using his password which is stored in a session variable,
it will be fully accessible for a few minutes and then all of a sudden.....Wham
session variable with password value is gone. And the session timeout is
far from expired. The session variable is not being touched in any way
after it gets initialized with a value.

Anyone no what could be causing this?

Thanks.

[jringwald]

I'm trying to resolve a related issue. I have set the session timeout in my web.config file:

<sessionState
mode="InProc"
stateConnectionString="tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424"
sqlConnectionString="data source=127.0.0.1;Trusted_Connection=yes"
cookieless="false"
timeout="480"
/>

I set a Session variable within a user login page as follows:

Session("UserName") = "John Doe"

Within each page of the site I check to see if the Session("UserName") variable still has "John Doe" as a value. If it doesn't I redirect to the login.apsx page (Response.Redirect("login.aspx").

My problem is that the session seems to timeout after about 20 min. and the user gets redirected back to the login page too soon.

Anyone know why the session timeout setting is not holding?

[PeoFeo]

Originally posted by jringwald
I'm trying to resolve a related issue. I have set the session timeout in my web.config file:

<sessionState
mode="InProc"
stateConnectionString="tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424"
sqlConnectionString="data source=127.0.0.1;Trusted_Connection=yes"
cookieless="false"
timeout="480"
/>

I set a Session variable within a user login page as follows:

Session("UserName") = "John Doe"

Within each page of the site I check to see if the Session("UserName") variable still has "John Doe" as a value. If it doesn't I redirect to the login.apsx page (Response.Redirect("login.aspx").

My problem is that the session seems to timeout after about 20 min. and the user gets redirected back to the login page too soon.

Anyone know why the session timeout setting is not holding?

why are you spamming your question in every other session thread, we can see your thread right below this.... The question the thread starter is asking is not even an asp.net session question, its an asp classic session question, the two act differently.

[jringwald]

Good call - many apologies. I'm a little agressive some times

[Kane]

Originally posted by grant
I've got some ASP pages where the session variable values get blown away BEFORE
the session times out. I can't understand it. For example: if a user
logs into my ASP app using his password which is stored in a session variable,
it will be fully accessible for a few minutes and then all of a sudden.....Wham
session variable with password value is gone. And the session timeout is
far from expired. The session variable is not being touched in any way
after it gets initialized with a value.

Anyone no what could be causing this?

Thanks.

I am having the same problem, and I'm not sure where else to try and temporarily store the information I need to. Cache is not guaranteed to be there when you need it, I can't write to the database everytime (too many times) and the information is per-user, so I can't use application variables.

Grant is right in saying the the developer-set session variables disappear, but the session itself does not actually expire and the user still remains logged in to the site.

[PeoFeo]

you can always dump the session, I mean if the user clicks a logout button session.abandon() will dump it all, does that help any?

[kumarjr]

Originally posted by PeoFeo
you can always dump the session, I mean if the user clicks a logout button session.abandon() will dump it all, does that help any?

reg. te session timeout after 20 min... pl. check out the iis settings

... select your application - properties - configuration - goto options tab - set the session timeout

this could be the reason

cheers
jr kumar

[PeoFeo]

Originally posted by kumarjr
reg. te session timeout after 20 min... pl. check out the iis settings

... select your application - properties - configuration - goto options tab - set the session timeout

this could be the reason

cheers
jr kumar

You can set it in iis, or the web.config, wherever you want, it still tends to fail. The asp.net session state is buggy, I rarely see it last even 20 minutes. If you want something to work in a timely manner use a cookie, do not worrie about accessibility, its not like the session isn't cookie driven, because it is (unless set to be otherwise).

[jringwald]

Yes I've stoped using Session completely - it's terribly buggy.

[dragonfly]

Make sure you have something to the effect of this in your global.asa file in your web application.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=VBScript RUNAT=Server>
SUB Session_OnStart
Session.TimeOut = 90
END SUB
</SCRIPT>
This sets the session lenght to 90 minutes. You can set it to whatever you want. You can also do this on a page per page basis by including <% session.Timeout = 90%> on the top of your pages.

We have used the session object on all of our web apps with no or little problems. Just make sure your app and web server are configured properly.

Other than that I cannot think of any reason why your variables would be dissapearing unless you are using a web farm.

http://www.w3schools.com/asp/asp_sessions.asp

http://www.juicystudio.com/tutorial/asp/session.asp

[PeoFeo]

Originally posted by dragonfly

Other than that I cannot think of any reason why your variables would be dissapearing unless you are using a web farm.

or the fact that the asp session is just buggy. I have tried all of that in my past experiments, I rarely see the session get up to or beyond the default time of 20 minutes. I asked Sujay at web matrix hosting (hes a bit of a pal of mine), and he said he hasn't either.

[howhiareu]

I had the same problem. (On a new Win2k3 server running IIS 6 - never had this issue on a Win2K box) With very low volume of users, usually not more than 1 user hitting the app during the timeout period.

After browsing through ISS mmc, I became suspicious of a setting in the App Pool the site with the problem was using.

I confirmed my answer here:
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX103672

Like I said -its a setting of the App Pool the site is using on, with a very low volume of users hitting the app.

Go to the App Pool for the site, to the Performance Tab.

Either uncheck the box for:
Shutdown worker processes after being idle for (time in minutes)
or set the value to >= your set session timeout.

[priddin]

I had a similar problem.

The Application pool was timing out after 1 minute. I changed it to 20 and it solved this problem.