Title: Session functionality causing errors in session-disabled server environments
Last modified: August 27, 2025

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# Session functionality causing errors in session-disabled server environments

 *  [masatoigarashi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/masatoigarashi/)
 * (@masatoigarashi)
 * [9 months, 1 week ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/session-functionality-causing-errors-in-session-disabled-server-environments/)
 * Hi there,
 * I’m experiencing PHP session errors with the reCAPTCHA for WooCommerce plugin
   in a server environment where PHP sessions are disabled for performance/security
   reasons.
 * **Error Details:**
 *     ```wp-block-code
       PHP Warning: session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_xxx, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13)
       PHP Warning: session_start(): Failed to read session data: files (path: /var/lib/php/session)
       ```
   
 * **Root Cause:** The plugin uses PHP sessions in the WordPress login functionality(
   line 211 in recaptcha-woo.php) to prevent duplicate reCAPTCHA checks during authentication.
   This occurs when `rcfwc_tested` option is set to ‘yes’.
 * **Current Workaround:** Setting `rcfwc_tested` to ‘no’ in the database disables
   the session functionality, and WooCommerce features (checkout, login, registration)
   work perfectly without sessions.
 * **Feature Request:** Could you consider implementing an alternative to PHP sessions
   for environments where they’re not available? Possible alternatives:
    - WordPress transients
    - User meta data
    - Database-stored tokens
    - Cookie-based approach with nonce verification
 * **Environment:**
    - WordPress: 6.8.2
    - WooCommerce: 10.1.1
    - Plugin Version: 1.4.5
    - Server: Nginx with session-disabled PHP-FPM
 * The plugin works great otherwise! Just need a session-free option for the WP 
   login duplicate check prevention mechanism.
 * Thanks for your consideration!

The topic ‘Session functionality causing errors in session-disabled server environments’
is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/recaptcha-woo/assets/icon-128x128.png?rev=3342271)
 * [reCAPTCHA for WooCommerce](https://wordpress.org/plugins/recaptcha-woo/)
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 * 0 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [masatoigarashi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/masatoigarashi/)
 * Last activity: [9 months, 1 week ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/session-functionality-causing-errors-in-session-disabled-server-environments/)
 * Status: not resolved