I was using phpMyAdmin to create a new table. I did that and closed the browser (without logging off) and rebooted after the kernel update.

Then logged back into phpMyAdmin to make more changes. The signin page came up fine. I entered my credentials and I was greeted by the following error:

phpMyAdmin – Error

Cannot start session without errors, please check errors given in your PHP and/or webserver log file and configure your PHP installation properly.

phpMyAdmin - Error

A quick search and I found an article that gave me the clue I needed:

As Root:

root@jdrummond-laptop:~# cd /var/lib/php5
root@jdrummond-laptop:/var/lib/php5# ls -l
total 40
-rw------- 1 www-data www-data 37673 2010-09-11 08:25 sess_f3pq4jcastnul23laj48ot92684u414p
root@jdrummond-laptop:/var/lib/php5# rm sess_f3pq4jcastnul23laj48ot92684u414p


Looks like a session got stranded in the folder and had some bogus data in it.

To fix this I removed the old session file and then phpMyAdmin was able to make new session files with no problem.

Here’s what the directory looked like after I got rid of the session that was blocking my login, and was in fact logged in.

root@jdrummond-laptop:/var/lib/php5# ls -l
total 76
-rw------- 1 www-data www-data 17305 2010-09-11 08:31 sess_5jc4klqbfsp5r53s7410n61o64dchjot
-rw------- 1 www-data www-data 34934 2010-09-11 08:31 sess_f3pq4jcastnul23laj48ot92684u414p
-rw------- 1 www-data www-data 17305 2010-09-11 08:31 sess_tgfla0dqoj33m2mrqvm08r7t3npvhhsh


If I hadn’t had files open during the update, I could have saved some headaches. Moral of the story is. Close all programs before updating your Ubuntu system.

References:
http://www.electrictoolbox.com/phpmyadmin-cannot-start-session-without-errors/

mygridprogress20090928

System Requirements
– 2 gigs of RAM
– 10 gigs of hard drive space

Windows or Linux – the VMware Player. Free.
Mac OSx – VMware Fusion. Free 30day trial.

The software list follows:
This starts with a LAMP setup. LAMP is an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. This combination of software is a common configuration for running PHP web applications. This has little to do with running Java, but does allow phpmyadmmin to be run. This is a web based MySQL database administration application. It’s easy to use and popular for administering a database from a remote site.

Ubuntu 8.10 – updated July 18th with all patches and fixes.

Apache 2.0 – web server

MySQL – version 5.0 – Version 5.0.67-0ubuntu

PHP version 5 – a web application programming language.

phpmyadmin – A PHP based web application for administrating MySQL

Eclipse Europa. – This is the base version of eclipse with few plugins.

JBoss Developer Studio Community Edition – If you like this version the release is available for a mere $99 from here.

jre 1.6.0 update 14
Installed to /usr/java/jre1.6.0_14

Java EE 5 SDK with jdk 1.6.0 update 14
Installed to /usr/java/SDK

Subversion version 1.5 – a source code control system.

subclipse version 1.4 – integration of subversion into eclipse.

Once the file has downloaded, extract the files contained in the Ubuntu.tar.gz archive. To do this, on windows use winzip. On Linux and MAC use tar like this: tar -xvf Ubuntu.tar.gz

Inside the archive are two files.

1. Ubuntu-disk1.vmdk
2. Ubuntu.vmx

Next run the VMware player. Once the program loads, click “Open Existing Virtual Machine”, and browse to the directory where you extracted the files from the archive. Select UBuntu.vmx and click Open.

While I wasn’t a big fan right from the start, I’m a big fan now. The first version I saw was Version 6.10 (Released October 2006). I was very much into CentOS at the time and so there was some resistance to the adoption of another OS when I was happy with what I had. Even today, I still use CentOS for firewall machines and machines that are used for DHCP, DNS caches, and the like. Ubuntu has become an operating system that I use for desktop systems.

I’m not an operating system zealot. I don’t have a problem with people using Windows. I still run windows too. It really makes sense for companies, who have a diverse work force with many different levels of user expertise. Companies have adopted Windows and they have invested in it. It’s typically behind the corporate firewall and everyone is used to it. For people with broader computing horizons, I encourage you to try kicking the tires on Linux.

I’ve setup desktops, laptops, and servers with Ubuntu. I find the documentation and software support forums to be an outstanding reason that the platform has succeeded.

Here are some of my favorite Linux Resources:

• http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
• http://www.linuxquestions.org/
• http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/

Ubuntu Announcements:

The best part is, that anyone can help. You simply, install a screen saver and donate your idle computer time.

Here is a short list of projects that are active as of this writing.

• The Clean Energy Project
• Nutritious Rice for the World
• Help Conquer Cancer
• Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together
• Human Proteome Folding – Phase 2 Project
• FightAIDS@Home Project

I am a proud donator of computing power to the World Community Grid. Here are a few of my stats.

Help Conquer Cancer

Do you know someone who has been effected by cancer? I recently lost my father-in-law to lung cancer. If you have been effected directly or indirectly by cancer, then Join The Grid Now!

Please join the grid and change the world. If you start donating computing power as a result of this article, then please join my team. NCC-1701