If CMSimple produces error messages when validating your page, what can you do?
The text of the message: 'cannot generate system identifier for general entity “PHPSESSID”'
means, that a string like &PHPSESSID= somestringhere3432423 is added to all links in your page.
This is caused by PHP Sessionhandling which is used by some plugins, for example AdvancedNews Version 1.0.0
The & in that string is validated as an error, & are expected as & to be correct
what can be done?
- these settings can be changed in the php.ini: The separator used in PHP generated URLs to separate arguments: Default is “&”. set it to arg_separator.output = “&”
- if you cannot modify the php.ini (for sure not possible at most hosting services) you can try to set a flag in the .htaccess file: add php_value arg_separator.output & to your .htaccess file
- if you cannot modify or add .htaccess-files to your webspace do this:
- identify the script which starts sessions, find session_start();
- add this line before session_start(); : ini_set('arg_separator.output', '&');
The PHPSESSID will only be emitted by PHP, if the user agent (browser) doesn't accept cookies and the ini setting session.use_trans_sid is “1”. If you want to avoid the PHPSESSID at all, you can try to change this setting in the .htaccess file: add php_value session.use_trans_sid “0”. N.B.: this will prohibit users who have cookies disabled to use some functionality of those plugins, but will increase security, if the plugins uses the session to store any kind of authentification.
