PHP Warning: session_write_close() Zend Framework 1 and PHP 7.1.11-1 turns into blank page

Question

I have a Zend Framework 1 (ZF1) application running in a Docker container with PHP 7.1.9-1. Now I have updated such container and the PHP version has changed to 7.1.11-1. For some reason unknow to me the application has stopped working (I got a blank page) and the only error I can see is:

[Sat Nov 04 16:05:45.500626 2017] [php7:notice] [pid 61] [client 172.18.0.1:49356] PHP Warning:  session_write_close(): Failed to write session data using user defined save handler. (session.save_path: /var/lib/php/sessions) in /var/www/html/vendor/zendframework/zendframework1/library/Zend/Session.php on line 732
[Sat Nov 04 16:05:45.500637 2017] [php7:notice] [pid 61] [client 172.18.0.1:49356] PHP Stack trace:
[Sat Nov 04 16:05:45.500653 2017] [php7:notice] [pid 61] [client 172.18.0.1:49356] PHP   1. Zend_Session_SaveHandler_DbTable->__destruct() /var/www/html/vendor/zendframework/zendframework1/library/Zend/Session/SaveHandler/DbTable.php:0
[Sat Nov 04 16:05:45.500658 2017] [php7:notice] [pid 61] [client 172.18.0.1:49356] PHP   2. Zend_Session::writeClose($readonly = *uninitialized*) /var/www/html/vendor/zendframework/zendframework1/library/Zend/Session/SaveHandler/DbTable.php:217
[Sat Nov 04 16:05:45.500661 2017] [php7:notice] [pid 61] [client 172.18.0.1:49356] PHP   3. session_write_close() /var/www/html/vendor/zendframework/zendframework1/library/Zend/Session.php:732

I know there is a lot of info about this but nothing I have tried did work for me. Some of them are:

• error in zend session database for php7
• https://github.com/zendframework/zf1/issues/665#issue-127528467
• PHP7 + Symfony 2.8, Failed to write session data

This is how the Session Save Handler has been setup in the bootstrap.php file as explained here in docs:

$config = [
    'name'           => 'session',
    'primary'        => 'id',
    'modifiedColumn' => 'modified',
    'dataColumn'     => 'data',
    'lifetimeColumn' => 'lifetime',
];

Zend_Session::setSaveHandler(new Zend_Session_SaveHandler_DbTable($config));
Zend_Session::start();

I did know also that ZF1 reached it's EOL recently and there is no support but for now I can get rid of ZF1 on my application and I do not want to go back to PHP5.

My guess is something has changed between 7.1.9 and 7.1.10 but I don't have a clue about it.

Any ideas in what could be going wrong here?

Answer 1

Alright there's a bug report for this at https://github.com/zendframework/zf1/issues/665 and a pull request at https://github.com/zendframework/zf1/pull/654. But due EOL they'll not work about it.

So as @zerocrates mentioned you can work around code or just ignore it. This's the code on Zend/Session/SaveHandler/DbTable.php line 338

public function write($id, $data)
{
    $return = false;
    $data = array($this->_modifiedColumn => time(),
                  $this->_dataColumn     => (string) $data);
    $rows = call_user_func_array(array(&$this, 'find'), $this->_getPrimary($id));
    if (count($rows)) {
        $data[$this->_lifetimeColumn] = $this->_getLifetime($rows->current());
        if ($this->update($data, $this->_getPrimary($id, self::PRIMARY_TYPE_WHERECLAUSE))) {
            $return = true;
        }
    } else {
        $data[$this->_lifetimeColumn] = $this->_lifetime;
        if ($this->insert(array_merge($this->_getPrimary($id, self::PRIMARY_TYPE_ASSOC), $data))) {
            $return = true;
        }
    }
    return $return;
}

As you can see it's return false if db can't write. You can edit code base or extend it and return always true.

Why db can't write it? I don't know. Its expecting to work well if your table and config is valid. Its seems you are using one column session due your config so your table have to be like;

CREATE TABLE `session` (
`id` char(32),
`modified` int,
`lifetime` int,
`data` text,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
);

Answer 2

I have faced a similar issue like this before.

Since an update that returns 0 but doesn't throw an exception was still a successful query with no error

Hence the function write will return false instead of true, and PHP 7 requires a true result.

I have fixed that by changing, in Zend/Session/SaveHandler/DbTable.php:

if ($this->update($data, $this->_getPrimary($id, 
self::PRIMARY_TYPE_WHERECLAUSE))) {

To:

if (is_int($this->update($data, $this->_getPrimary($id, 
self::PRIMARY_TYPE_WHERECLAUSE)))) {