Title: WP Session creates database error
Last modified: December 15, 2017
---
# WP Session creates database error
* Resolved [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/)
* (@chamois_blanc)
* [8 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/)
* Hello,
* I just updated to v2.0.1 and I am getting lots of database errors. Something
is very wrong. Please advise/fix. Thank you!
* ```
[15-Dec-2017 02:55:56 UTC] WordPress database error Table 'dnvxwyxfcy.wp_sm_sessions' doesn't exist for query SELECT * FROM wp_sm_sessions WHERE session_key = '8c880999466a5f1670e1e87b2b4c70f1' made by require_once('wp-load.php'), require_once('wp-config.php'), require_once('wp-settings.php'), do_action('plugins_loaded'), WP_Hook->do_action, WP_Hook->apply_filters, wp_session_start, WP_Session::get_instance, WP_Session->__construct, WP_Session->read_data, WP_Session_Utils::get_session
[15-Dec-2017 02:55:56 UTC] WordPress database error Table 'dnvxwyxfcy.wp_sm_sessions' doesn't exist for query SELECT * FROM wp_sm_sessions WHERE session_key = '8c880999466a5f1670e1e87b2b4c70f1' made by require_once('wp-load.php'), require_once('wp-config.php'), require_once('wp-settings.php'), do_action('plugins_loaded'), WP_Hook->do_action, WP_Hook->apply_filters, wp_session_start, WP_Session::get_instance, WP_Session->__construct, WP_Session->read_data, WP_Session_Utils::get_session
[15-Dec-2017 02:55:58 UTC] WordPress database error Table 'wp_sm_sessions' already exists for query CREATE TABLE wp_sm_sessions (
session_id BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
session_key char(32) NOT NULL,
session_value LONGTEXT NOT NULL,
session_expiry BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (session_key),
UNIQUE KEY session_id (session_id)
) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci made by do_action('admin_init'), WP_Hook->do_action, WP_Hook->apply_filters, create_sm_sessions_table, dbDelta
```
Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
* [Andrew Schultz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tabboy/)
* (@tabboy)
* [8 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9787347)
* It means that you don’t have permissions to create new tables. Add this line
to your wp-config.php file
* `define( 'WP_SESSION_USE_OPTIONS', true );`
* This is documented here
* [https://github.com/ericmann/wp-session-manager](https://github.com/ericmann/wp-session-manager)
* Plugin Author [Eric Mann](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ericmann/)
* (@ericmann)
* [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9874678)
* The database creation routine wasn’t wired correctly to run before session
initialization as of v2.0.1. That specific bug was fixed in v2.0.2. This should
be resolved now with either that or the latest 3.X versions.
* Alternatively, Andrew’s suggestion to force options usage will skip working
with a custom database table entirely. Either way, this should be resolved.
* Please advise if that’s not the case.
* Thread Starter [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/)
* (@chamois_blanc)
* [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9875416)
* Hi Eric,
* I have updated to v3.* and it seems to work fine. Note that I had to remove ‘
define(WP_SESSION_USE_OPTIONS, true)’ from wp-config.php to things to work. That
should maybe be mentioned somewhere in the documentation.
* Thread Starter [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/)
* (@chamois_blanc)
* [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9875532)
* It looks like the code to start a session should be conditioned on $_SESSION
not being already set, something like this:
* ```
function my_session_start() {
if (!isset($_SESSION)) {
session_start();
}
}
// Start up session management, if we're not in the CLI
if (!defined('WP_CLI') || false === WP_CLI) {
add_action('plugins_loaded', 'my_session_start', 10, 0);
}
```
- This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/).
* Plugin Author [Eric Mann](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ericmann/)
* (@ericmann)
* [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9875722)
* The `session_start()` call will either start a new session or resume an existing
one. Without that call, `$_SESSION` won’t be populated at all. See [http://php.net/manual/en/function.session-start.php](http://php.net/manual/en/function.session-start.php)
for reference.
* Thread Starter [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/)
* (@chamois_blanc)
* [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9875780)
* I am getting a PHP notice because session_start() is being called when the session
is already active. It is possible the session was started by some other plugin.
That is why I am advocating to check whether the session was already started
before calling session_start().
* Plugin Author [Eric Mann](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ericmann/)
* (@ericmann)
* [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9880184)
* I’m super curious what other code is calling `session_start()`, but that’s beside
the point.
* I added some more defensive coding in v3.0.3 (just released) that checks to see
if the session is active before calling `session_start()`. If it’s already been
started by some other code, then I won’t run a duplicate call.
* Thread Starter [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/)
* (@chamois_blanc)
* [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9880399)
* Here are some answers for you:
* ```
session_start();
wp-content/plugins/woo-order-export-lite/classes/core/class-wc-order-export-engine.php
session_start();
wp-content/plugins/upme/modules/social/lib/facebook/facebook.php
session_start();
wp-content/plugins/upme/modules/social/class-upme-facebook-connect.php
@session_start();
wp-content/plugins/upme/modules/social/class-upme-linkedin-connect.php
@session_start();
wp-content/plugins/upme/modules/social/class-upme-google-connect.php
@session_start();
wp-content/plugins/upme/modules/social/class-upme-twitter-connect.php
session_start();
session_start();
wp-content/plugins/updraftplus/vendor/phpseclib/phpseclib/phpseclib/Crypt/Random.php
```
* Thank you for making the change!
- This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/).
Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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* 
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## Tags
* [database errors](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/database-errors/)
* 8 replies
* 3 participants
* Last reply from: [therealgilles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chamois_blanc/)
* Last activity: [8 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-session-creates-database-error/#post-9880399)
* Status: resolved