PphpMyAdmin - Error Cannot start session without errors: How to fix?

Question

When I try to login to PHPmyadmin I get the following error:

 phpMyAdmin - Error Cannot start session without errors, please check errors given 
 in your PHP and/or webserver log file and configure your PHP installation properly. 
Also ensure that cookies are enabled in your browser.

I tried to fix by changing permissions of the /tmp (listed as sessions path in php.ini) to 755 then tried 777 I also tried changing user and group ownership with chown to www-data. (www-data listed as user for php-fpm and Nginx) Tried multiple web browsers, deleting cookies, deleting all session files from server's /tmp folder. PHP info shows sessions loaded. Not sure what else it could be, all other areas of the site load perfect and there's nothing in error logs related.

Lastly I followed instructions here: http://wiki.phpmyadmin.net/pma/session.save_path

and the results are: "If a session could be started successfully you should not see any Warning(s), otherwise check the path/folder mentioned in the warning(s) for proper access rights. The current "session.save_path" is "/etc/php/tmp". Session file name: "sess_o47fu5ovh3o91m6h2b9pumu0g6".

Any PHP guru's which this is something you are familiar with?

"check errors given in your PHP and/or webserver log file". What are the errors ? — Lorenz Meyer
Thanks. Yes, already checked /var/log/php-fpm.log and apache logs. Just like the php save path test it seems successful so nothing is logged. I put a bad character in in PHP and it logs that. So logs work but nothing logged when login fails only the browser error listed above. — Hayden
Two things: a) open phpmyadming in a different browser to confirm that the problem is not your side. If you still cannot open it then b) check your available disk space. — Grzegorz
thanks yes tried both already 1) Firefox, chrome, Opera and Konqueror (im on Arch Linux) also tried IE8 on a old XP laptop I pulled out. b) df -h shows free space on all partitions. Most full is root part with 69% used. — Hayden

Faron Faron · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-09T18:25:42

Not sure if this applies to your case - but it's my understanding chmod 755 or 777 will not run the scripts. Try this:

chmod o-rw config.inc.php

PphpMyAdmin - Error Cannot start session without errors: How to fix?

2 Answers