Sessions not starting? + weird error message

Question

So I found/made an "online users" page that shows the users online as well as the visitors, when I log in it shows me as a visitor. I think my sessions aren't working correctly, I've had a lot of problems with database selections too (I'm supposed to get results according to the username, but it doesn't work). I also can't access pages that are set to only allow logged in users.

Here's the code that creates the session name that I call up later

$_SESSION['userlogin']=$username;

Here's the code that prevents users from accessing the page if they aren't logged in, but I get the "You must be logged in" even when I am logged in!!

<?php
include("header.php");
if(isset($_SESSION['userlogin'])){
echo "You must be logged in to view this page!";
}else{

echo "Success, figured it out eh?";
?>

<?php
}
include("footer.php");
?>

And here's the entire users online code

<?php
include("connect.php");
include("header.php");
include('userson.txt');
if(isset($_SESSION)) session_start();        // start Session, if not already started

$filetxt = 'userson.txt';  // the file in which the online users /visitors are stored
$timeon = 120;             // number of secconds to keep a user online
$sep = '^^';               // characters used to separate the user name and date-time
$vst_id = '-vst-';         // an identifier to know that it is a visitor, not logged user

/*
 If you have an user registration script,
 replace $_SESSION['nume'] with the variable in which the user name is stored.
*/

// get the user name if it is logged, or the visitors IP (and add the identifier)
$uvon = isset($_SESSION['userlogin']) ? $_SESSION['userlogin'] : $_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR'].    $vst_id;

$rgxvst = '/^([0-9\.]*)'. $vst_id. '/i';         // regexp to recognize the line with visitors
$nrvst = 0;                                       // to store the number of visitors

// sets the row with the current user /visitor that must be added in $filetxt (and current timestamp)
$addrow[] = $uvon. $sep. time();

// check if the file from $filetxt exists and is writable
if(is_writable($filetxt)) {
// get into an array the lines added in $filetxt
$ar_rows = file($filetxt, FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);
$nrrows = count($ar_rows);            // number of rows

// if there is at least one line, parse the $ar_rows array
if($nrrows>0) {
for($i=0; $i<$nrrows; $i++) {
  // get each line and separate the user /visitor and the timestamp
  $ar_line = explode($sep, $ar_rows[$i]);

  // add in $addrow array the records in last $timeon seconds
  if($ar_line[0]!=$uvon && (intval($ar_line[1])+$timeon)>=time()) {
     $addrow[] = $ar_rows[$i];
      }
    }
  }
}

$nruvon = count($addrow);                   // total online
$usron = '';                                    // to store the name of logged users
// traverse $addrow to get the number of visitors and users
for($i=0; $i<$nruvon; $i++) {
if(preg_match($rgxvst, $addrow[$i])) $nrvst++;       // increment the visitors
else {
// gets and stores the user's name
$ar_usron = explode($sep, $addrow[$i]);
$usron .= '<br/> - <i>'. $ar_usron[0]. '</i>';
 }
}
$nrusr = $nruvon - $nrvst;              // gets the users (total - visitors)

// the HTML code with data to be displayed
$reout = '<div id="uvon"><h4>Online: '. $nruvon. '</h4>Visitors: '. $nrvst. '<br/>Users: '. $nrusr.     $usron. '</div>';

// write data in $filetxt
if(!file_put_contents($filetxt, implode("\n", $addrow))) $reout = 'Error: Recording file not exists,     or is not writable';

// if access from <script>, with GET 'uvon=showon', adds the string to return into a JS statement
// in this way the script can also be included in .html files
if(isset($_GET['uvon']) && $_GET['uvon']=='showon') $reout = "document.write('$reout');";

echo $reout;             // output /display the result
?>

Here's the weird error I get on the users online page too - "127.0.0.1-vst-^^1411198259"

Any ideas? You can test this out yourself as well as my website is up (www.velrania.com), try to ignore all the other errors too :P

Answer 1

Start the session in first row...

session_start(); 
include("connect.php");
include("header.php");
include('userson.txt');