Warning: session_start(): Cannot find save handler ‘memcache’

Hi there,

This is the first I’ve seen of this error. Can you provide us with your system info? Go to “Donations > Settings > System Info” I think this might be related to your environment.

Also, what host are you on? Occassionally hosts do strange things with PHP Sessions.

Thanks!

Hey @djpeanut – We’re glad you love our plugin, that’s always good to hear! ?? I haven’t seen that particular PHP warning reported as of yet. Doing a quick Google search on it brings up some server specific settings that may need to be updated on your end. In fact, PHP warnings shouldn’t display on a live site but that’s besides the point. It sounds like there’s an issue on your server running PHP sessions.

Try adding define( 'GIVE_USE_PHP_SESSIONS', false ); to your wp-config.php file within the root WP directory. Then run a few test donations to ensure everything is working properly and the warning no longer displays.

Let me know how that goes!

Hi Matt,

Here’s the output of the system info:

### Begin System Info ###

-- Site Info

Site URL:                 https://transcaucasian.com
Home URL:                 https://transcaucasian.com
Multisite:                No

-- Hosting Provider

Host:                     DBH: localhost, SRV: transcaucasian.com

-- User Browser

Platform:                 Apple 
Browser Name:             Chrome  
Browser Version:          55.0.2883.95 
User Agent String:        Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Ma 
			  c OS X 10_12_2) AppleWebKit/537.
                          36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/55
                          .0.2883.95 Safari/537.36
                          
-- WordPress Configuration

Version:                  4.7.1
Language:                 en_US
Permalink Structure:      /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
Active Theme:             Themify Ultra 1.6.3
Show On Front:            page
Page On Front:            Home (#1157)
Page For Posts:           Blog (#7)
Remote Post:              wp_remote_post() works
Table Prefix:             Length: 5   Status: Acceptable
Admin AJAX:               Accessible
WP_DEBUG:                 Disabled
Memory Limit:             40M
Registered Post Stati:    publish, future, draft, pending, private, trash, auto-draft, inherit, refunded, failed, revoked, cancelled, abandoned, spam

-- Give Configuration

Version:                  1.7.2
Upgraded From:            1.7.2
Test Mode:                Disabled
Currency Code:            GBP
Currency Position:        before
Decimal Separator:        .
Thousands Separator:      ,

-- Give Page Configuration

Success Page:             https://transcaucasian.com/donation-confirmation/
Failure Page:             https://transcaucasian.com/donation-failed/
Give Forms Slug:           /donations

-- Give Gateway Configuration

Enabled Gateways:         PayPal Standard
Default Gateway:          PayPal Standard

-- Must-Use Plugins

-- WordPress Active Plugins

Akismet: 3.2
Fetch Tweets: 2.6.2
Give - Donation Plugin: 1.7.2
Jetpack by WordPress.com: 4.4.2
Regenerate Thumbnails: 2.2.6
UpdraftPlus - Backup/Restore: 1.12.30
Wordfence Security: 6.2.10
WP Geo: 3.4
WP Maintenance Mode: 2.0.9
Yoast SEO: 4.0.2

-- WordPress Inactive Plugins

-- Webserver Configuration

PHP Version:              5.4.25
MySQL Version:            5.5.52
Webserver Info:           Apache

-- PHP Configuration

Safe Mode:                Disabled
Memory Limit:             256M
Upload Max Size:          64M
Post Max Size:            64M
Upload Max Filesize:      64M
Time Limit:               90
Max Input Vars:           5000
URL-aware fopen:          On (1)
Display Errors:           On (1)

-- PHP Extensions

cURL:                     Supported
cURL Version:             7.24.0
zlib:                     Supported
GD:                       Supported
fsockopen:                Supported
SOAP Client:              Installed
Suhosin:                  Not Installed
DOM:                      Installed
MBString:                 Installed

-- Session Configuration

Give Use Sessions:        Enabled
Session:                  Enabled
Session Name:             PHPSESSID
Cookie Path:              /
Save Path:                /tmp
Use Cookies:              On
Use Only Cookies:         On

### End System Info ###

I’m on shared cPanel hosting with Vidahost.com.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

HI @djpeanut did you try implementing the change the Devin suggested? Let us know how that goes.

Hi Matt,

I didn’t try Devin’s change but I did spot a suspicious looking php.ini file in my WP root that I didn’t recognise. On opening it I spotted the following lines:

[Session]
session.save_handler = memcache
session.save_path = "tcp://10.168.1.55:11211?persistent=1&weight=1&timeout=1&retry_interval=15"

This looked like an attempted exploit and the possible cause of the issue. Deleting said file resolved the problem.

Very odd!

Thanks for the follow up with your solution!