Question

Losing Cookies/Sessions with IE Browsers

Asked by: AD_Tech

I was just wondering if anyone here have experienced the same situation I'm in
right now. In a nutshell, I'm noticing on my ecommerce website the cookie holding
the shopping cart ID is being dropped after several clicks through the website
only with IE browsers. With the same code, it works just fine with
FireFox/Netscape browers.

Here's how my database driven shopping cart works on my site. In the
Application.cfm I have these lines of code:

<!--- -------------------------------------------------------------------- --->
<!--- SHOPPING CART RELATED FUNCTIONS START HERE  --->
<!--- -------------------------------------------------------------------- --->

<cfif NOT IsDefined("COOKIE.LastCartID")>
      <!--- Set a cookie if the user decides to purchase later --->
      <cfset newCCID = #CreateUUID()#>
      <cfcookie name="LastCartID" value="#newCCID#">
      <!--- Insert tracking variables here  --->
      <cfquery username="#application.qryUserName#" password="#application.qryPassword#" name="checkTransID" datasource="#Application.DSN#" dbtype="ODBC">
            SELECT            OrderTransID
            FROM            tblOrderTransactions
            WHERE            OrderTransID = '#SESSION.CFTOKEN#'
      </cfquery>
      <!--- If no record, create new order transaction ID  --->
      <cfif CompareNoCase(checkTransID.RecordCount,1)>
            <cfquery username="#application.qryUserName#" password="#application.qryPassword#" name="createEZaccount" datasource="#Application.DSN#" dbtype="ODBC">
            INSERT INTO tblOrderTransactions(OrderTransID,CustIP)
            VALUES('#SESSION.CFTOKEN#','#CGI.REMOTE_ADDR#');
            </cfquery>
      </cfif>
      <!--- Create CartID in SESSION var  --->
      <cflock timeout="30" throwontimeout="No" name="#SESSION.SessionID#" type="EXCLUSIVE">
            <cfset SESSION.CartID = COOKIE.LastCartID>
      </cflock>
      
      
</cfif>
      
<cfif NOT IsDefined("SESSION.CartID")>
      <cflock timeout="30" throwontimeout="No" name="#SESSION.SessionID#" type="EXCLUSIVE">
            <cfset SESSION.CartID = COOKIE.LastCartID>
      </cflock>
</cfif>

<cfparam name="thisCartID" default="#COOKIE.LastCartID#">
<!--- -------------------------------------------------------------------- --->
<!--- -------------------------------------------------------------------- --->

A first time visitor will have a new cart ID created and saved to a cookie
(COOKIE.LastCartID) and to a session variable (SESSION.CartID). Once the mini
shopping cart is reached, a query is made to the cart database to find contents
of the cart and will display the data. New customers will return 0 contents
obviously but returning customers who added items in a previous session will
display as such. Now, what I noticed is after adding an item to the cart and
making about 20 or so click throughs on the site, the cart returns 0 items and
with my debugging code on, a whole new cookie ID is created as well as other
session variables (CFID, CFTOKEN, etc.). Using the cfdump feature, I was able to see right before a new cookie.LastCartID is created, new session and cookies for CFID & CFTOKEN are generated.

I'm just wondering if anyone else experienced this and what strategies should I
undertake to resolve this. This is an issue specific to IE browsers. Thanks.

Orlando

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Asked On
2008-02-27 at 08:01:37ID23197270
Tags

Microsoft

,

Internet Explorer

Topics

ColdFusion Application Server

,

Internet Explorer Web Browser

,

E-Commerce

Participating Experts
2
Points
0
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: b0lsc0ttPosted on 2008-02-28 at 15:49:22ID: 21009455

I am not a ColdFusion expert but I have a general idea.  As you go through these steps are you ever taken to a secure or different protocol (e.g. https:) or to a different subdomain (e.g. start.domain.com and then go to new.domain.com)?  The browser used should not make a difference with these things but I thought I would check.

bol

 

by: AD_TechPosted on 2008-02-29 at 05:08:28ID: 21012810

I do notice when I bounce around in the secure areas (checkout pages) of the site it doesn't happen. Only in the non-secure areas (product pages, category pages, etc.) What's puzzling to me is that it happens at or around the 20th click. A new CFID and CFTOKEN is generated and then a new SESSION.CartID.

 

by: JICrewPosted on 2008-03-06 at 11:39:50ID: 21063889

We're actually having the exact same problem right now with an application that we have.  If you figure it out, kindly share what you've learned, and I'll do the same.  As you said, it's an IE-only issue, related to sessions.

The weird thing for us is the point in the file that the error occurs.  It usually happens after a <cfmodule> call, and after that session data has already been accessed.  In other words, here is a simplified version of what we're seeing:

Line 1:  <cfoutput>#session.myval#</cfoutput>
Line 2:  <cfmodule template="mytemplate.cfm">
Line 3:  <cfoutput>#session.myval#</cfoutput>

In this example, we will often get an error on line 3 saying that "myval" is undefined in "session."  The obvious thing to suggest is that something in mytemplate.cfm is deleting "myval" from the session scope, but that simply isn't true.  Even if it WERE true, why would this only happen to users with IE?

This is very frustrating.

 

by: AD_TechPosted on 2008-06-05 at 05:34:00ID: 21718586

With the ad of a third party and absolutely no help here, we discovered there was a set of javascript code for a multi select drop down box we use on our website was poorly written and causing a cookie to overload every time a page loads. This in turn would drop the current session and causing the server to start a new one.

The lesson here is to be very careful when using free scripts from website regardless how popular they may be. What may work fine now may cause incompatibility issues in the future.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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