BIOSTALL

Upon trying to login to SugarCRM ealier today I kept getting an error stating “You have been logged out because your session has expired”. I knew the details were correct but no matter how many times I tried the same message kept coming up and I could not login. Upon fumbling around for a while I came across a couple of solutions, one of which resolved the problem. I explain these in more detail below:

Solution One – Session Directory Not Writable

This first solution wasn’t relevant in my case but I did see it mentioned a few times on my travels as a very likely resolution to the problem mentioned above and thought it worth a mention it here.

When you’re logged into SugarCRM it uses PHP sessions to store information about your current visit. This solution suggests that the directory where this session information is stored is not writable and therefore SugarCRM is unable to continue past the login screen.

So where is this directory? The first place to look is in your SugarCRM configuration file. This can found in the root of your SugarCRM installation and is in a file called config.php. Within this PHP file is a reference to where sessions will be stored. If this contains a valid path then ensure SugarCRM has permission to write to it.

If the above path in config.php is blank then SugarCRM will use the path set in the php.ini file. You can view what this is set to by creating a PHP file and entering the following:

echo ini_get("session.save_path");

Solution Two – Disk Out Of Space

The other possible cause of the error was that the disk where SugarCRM is located was out of space which was the case in my scenario. By simply deleting a few old backups and cleaning down unused files I was then able to login again immediately.

I use Windows 7 and recently got prompted that an update to Skype was available and that I should update to the latest version 5.3.0. As a fan of getting the latest new features and security updates I did just that. I downloaded it, installed it and everything seemed to go ok. It would not however sign me in and kept prompting “This program has stopped working”.

I tried restarting the PC multiple times, downloading the update again but it still wouldn’t get past logging me in without crashing.

The Solution

Option 1

The problem seemed to be with it running in Compatibility Mode as I had been with previous versions. Finally I figured out how to get it running as it should by following the steps outlined below:

1. Right-click the Skype.exe executable (Type ‘Skype’ in your start menu and right-click the Skype icon when it appears).
2. Click ‘Properties’.
3. Select the ‘Compatilibility’ tab.
4. Uncheck the tickbox that reads ‘Run this program in compatiblity mode for:’.
5. Click ‘OK’ and try to load Skype again as you would normally.

This time your Skype should load fully and allow you to login without any issues.

Option 2

If the first option doesn’t work or if Compatibility Mode is already turned off I recommend you try the following steps (credit to tonybd264):

1. Quit Skype if it is running.
2. Ensure that “Show hidden files and folders” is switched on. To check this click ‘Start’, type ‘run’ and press Enter. Type ‘control folders’ and click OK, then select the ‘View’ tab and ensure the ‘Show hidden, files, and drives’ entry is enabled.
3. Locate the shared.xml file. To do this click ‘Start’, type ‘run’ and press Enter. Type ‘%appdata%\Skype’ and click OK. Delete the ‘shared.xml’ file.
4. Run Skype again.

When you run Skype it will rebuild the shared.xml file allowing you to login and use the program successfully.

If you’re anything like me and use the FTP client FileZilla to manage hundreds of sites, you’ll know that to lose all your site manager settings and have to re-input them would take hours. If the time has come to backup or if you’ve purchased a new computer and are looking to copy your FTP settings, simply follow a couple of easy steps explained below and you’ll be back up and running in no time.

Step 1
Open up your copy of FileZilla, select the ‘Export…’ option from the ‘File’ menu and click the checkbox that reads ‘Export Site Manager entries’. At this point you may also want to select to export your settings and the current transfer queue if one exists.

Step 2
Click ‘OK’ and you’ll be asked where you want to save the exported file to. The export is in the format of an XML file and should be saved in a suitable location.

Step 3
Now we have our FileZilla site manager safe and sound it’s time to look at importing our sites back into FileZilla. To do this, with FileZilla open, select the ‘Import…’ option from the ‘File’ menu and navigate to where the saved XML file is sitting. Simply click ‘OK’ and watch as your settings flood back in. It’s almost as if you were never FileZilla-less.