Symptoms
A customer cannot login to phpMyAdmin from the POA Customer Control Panel. The login page, the one with user name and password, keeps reloading after entering proper credentials.
Cause
The possible reason is incorrect permissions for the PHP sessions folder defined in the /etc/php.ini configuration file, the parameter is session.save_path.
Resolution
Check the Apache log file /var/log/httpd_error_log.ssl on the server where the phpMyAdmin application is running, it should contain permissions error like below:
[Wed Oct 30 09:39:13 2013] [error] [client 89.253.252.8] PHP Warning: session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_0p50pbnvoo8ebp11iqjuihjg4g16uhu7, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13) in /usr/local/pem/sysvhosts/phpMyAdmin/libraries/session.inc.php on line 87
[Wed Oct 30 09:39:13 2013] [error] [client 89.253.252.8] PHP Warning: Unknown: open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_0p50pbnvoo8ebp11iqjuihjg4g16uhu7, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13) in Unknown on line 0
[Wed Oct 30 09:39:13 2013] [error] [client 89.253.252.8] PHP Warning: Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session)
Check the permissions set on the folder defined in the <session.save_path> parameter in the php.ini file, it is the /var/lib/php/session in the example above:
# stat /var/lib/php/session/ | grep Access
Access: (0770/drwxrwx---) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: (10002/ pemsrv)
Make sure that the PHP sessions folder is accessible by the apache user, set the necessary permissions on the folder.