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stardog777
Starting Member

37 Posts

Posted - December 18 2002 :  10:33:51  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I was noticing VP-ASP is storing arrays in Session variables. This is very bad. Microsoft even says to avoid this. I also noticed what looks like an attempt to use cookies instead of Sessions -- which would make your shopping cart not timeout. Is VP-ASP going to support cookies soon? I was wondering why this hasn't been done yet... it looks like they've tried to do this, but I'm not sure if the code is working yet.

Comments?

greatphoto
VP-CART Super User

USA
304 Posts

Posted - February 01 2005 :  07:54:16  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Does anyone have info on this? Can we confirm whether Microsoft advises for or against session variable arrays? I'm suddenly having major trouble with my cart. Its not clear whether its the host or VPASP, but I've had both support teams involved extensively and so far noone can say why this is happening. I can tell that session variables that should be getting set are not set. That is causing my cart to fail to display.

See http://www.vpasp.com/virtprog/vpaspforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3424



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devshb
Senior Member

United Kingdom
1904 Posts

Posted - February 01 2005 :  08:31:08  Show Profile  Visit devshb's Homepage  Reply with Quote
vpasp 5.5 will allow you to use sessionless/cookieless "sessions"

ie it allows you to use vpasp without sessions/cookies at all and will keep your "session" active for any amount of time that you specify in admin (including never-timeout I think) - that's optional on 5.5; you can have it as per the old style (sessions) or switch on "sessionless".

sessionless uses the database to store the "session" details and it basically adds the sessionid to the forms/arguments for you, hence no global sessionid is needed to be stored in a session/cookie.

Simon Barnaby
Developer
[email protected]
www.BigYellowZone.com
Web Design, Online Marketing and VPASP addons
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greatphoto
VP-CART Super User

USA
304 Posts

Posted - February 01 2005 :  17:40:13  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hi Simon-

Thanks...I'm aware of this, but it does have limitations such as:

"When VP-ASP cooklieless facility is not suitable and will not work
• Do not use with Access database since it may cause database to grow,"

--from page 52 of http://www.vpasp.com/virtprog/vpasp550optiondesign.pdf

Are you pretty much saying that session variables in VP-ASP do have issues and I should move to this immediately? My site has been fine for over a year, but suddenly noone can place an order. Its been itermittently down 4 days now! I'm getting desperate!



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devshb
Senior Member

United Kingdom
1904 Posts

Posted - February 02 2005 :  04:40:38  Show Profile  Visit devshb's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Hi,

no; I'd say only move over to sessionless if it suits your needs/setup.

I don't think the search-engine thing should be a problem, because if an invalid sessionid is used then all it does is create a new default one, so a link to a non-existent sessionid should still work fine (ie just as-if it's a normal new visitor)

Also, don't forget that for normal sessions, they are essentially a form of cookie, as your pc will still need a cookie to know which sessionid you're linked to (ie you'd have a cookie which points to the server's sessionid). So it's only the vpasp-style sessionless logic that's truly sessionless/cookieless.

I would take anything that microsoft says with a pinch of salt though, but that's just a personal opinion!

Simon Barnaby
Developer
[email protected]
www.BigYellowZone.com
Web Design, Online Marketing and VPASP addons

Edited by - devshb on February 02 2005 04:42:49

Edited by - devshb on February 02 2005 04:43:28
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shopcomputer
VP-CART New User

USA
57 Posts

Posted - February 02 2005 :  07:31:43  Show Profile  Visit shopcomputer's Homepage  Reply with Quote
http://www.google.com/intl/az/webmasters/guidelines.html

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shopcomputer
VP-CART New User

USA
57 Posts

Posted - February 02 2005 :  23:41:23  Show Profile  Visit shopcomputer's Homepage  Reply with Quote
I had a meeting today with a search engine specialist, so I asked him the question. He said the problem is the search engine will have you listed with ex. 123 as the session number, the next time it visits, it will not get that session number, it will think that page does not exist, and will reenter you to the search engine as a new page with a different session number. He said that will hurt your rankings.

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greatphoto
VP-CART Super User

USA
304 Posts

Posted - February 03 2005 :  04:47:26  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
These posts are helpful devshb and Shopcomputer. Its discussion like this that makes this forum so useful! Thanks.



Shopcomputer-

I think your search engine specialist is right. Its consistent with this bullet from the google link you gave:
"Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session ID's or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page."



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