Question

I am having problems with my login process. I am using sessions and reloading so that I can have a single page site. On Chrome, this adds a ? so the end of the url (anytime the ? is present, login does not work). And on both Firefox and Chrome, the login-logout process only works once and then login stops working. I have an if statement on my index.php page that is essentially:

if($_SESSION["LoggedIn"] != true) {
    /*display login button*/
}
else {
    /*display logout button*/
}

Then I set my scripts file:

    $("#toolbarTitle-Login").click(function() {
        var loginEmail = $("#toolbarTextbox-Email").val();
        var loginPassword = $("#toolbarTextbox-Password").val();
        if (loginEmail != "") {
            $("#toolbarPleaseWait").text("Please wait...");
            $.post(
                'ajax/loginProcess.php', 
                {
                    'email': loginEmail,
                    'password': loginPassword
                },
                function (response) {
                    window.location.reload(true);
                }
            );
        }
    });

    $("#toolbarTitleLoggedIn-Logout").click(function() {
        $("#toolbarPleaseWait").text("Logging out...");
            $.post(
                'ajax/logoutProcess.php', 
                {
                },
                function (response) {
                    window.location.reload(true);
                }
            );
    });

Then my processing pages loginProcess.php:

<?php
session_start();

include "../incl/databaseConnection.php";

$email = $connection->real_escape_string($_POST["email"]);
$password = $connection->real_escape_string(md5($_POST["password"]));

$sql = "SELECT clientId
        FROM clients
        WHERE (studentEmail = '$email' AND studentPassword = '$password') OR (parentEmail = '$email' AND parentPassword = '$password');";

if (!$result = $connection->query($sql)) {
    die ('There was an error running the query [' . $connection->error . ']');
}

$rows = $result->num_rows;
$row = $result->fetch_assoc();

if ($rows == 1) {
$_SESSION["loggedIn"] = true;
$_SESSION["clientId"] = $row["clientId"];

}
else if ($rows > 1) {
echo 'CHOOSE BETWEEN ACCOUNTS';
}
else if ($rows == 0) {
echo 'SHOW ERROR MESSAGE';
}

$connection->close();

?>

Next logoutProcess.php:

<?php
session_start();
session_unset();

?>

Answer 1

Okay, so it ended up being a very simple fix. I did not include return false; beneath my ajax post. This caused the page to reload as soon as I pushed the submit button (this action took place before the jquery fired), which is the natural behavior for <input type="submit">. The “?” was an indication of this submission, and showed that no POST variables had not been defined, or they would have been listed next to it.

    $("#toolbarTitle-Login").click(function() {
        var loginEmail = $("#toolbarTextbox-Email").val();
        var loginPassword = $("#toolbarTextbox-Password").val();
        if (loginEmail != "") {
            $("#toolbarPleaseWait").text("Please wait...");
            $.post(
                'ajax/loginProcess.php', 
                {
                    'email': loginEmail,
                    'password': loginPassword
                },
                function (response) {
                    window.location.reload(true);
                }
            );
            return false;
        }
    });


    $("#toolbarTitleLoggedIn-Logout").click(function() {
        $("#toolbarPleaseWait").text("Logging out...");

        $.ajax({
            url: "ajax/logoutProcess.php",
            context: document.body
        }).done(function() { 
            window.location.reload(true);
        });
        return false;
    });