Login attempt returns me to same page, no error

Hi all,

I'm trying to install Drupal 4.6.5 on my home development server, running Apache 2.0.55, PHP 5.1.2 and MySQL 5.0.15.

I followed the instructions in install.txt as precisely as I know how; upon opening the homepage initially I had the themes PHP 5.1 compatibility problem, so I did:

update variable set value='s:9:"chameleon";' where name='theme_default';

to change the theme. I created the admin account successfully using the web page, but when trying to login, it just returns me to the same page I try to login from, with no error.

The behaviour can be seen in the watchdog table - somewhere between logging in and redirection to the target page, it is 'forgotten' that I have logged in.

mysql> select wid,uid,type,severity,link,location,hostname,timestamp from watchdog where wid>=15 and wid<=21;
+-----+-----+---------------+----------+---------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------+
| wid | uid | type          | severity | link                                              | location                                                | hostname    | timestamp  |
+-----+-----+---------------+----------+---------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------+
|  15 |   1 | user          |        0 |                                                   | /drupal-4.6.5/?q=user/login&destination=user%2F1%2Fedit | 192.168.0.2 | 1137896523 |
|  16 |   0 | access denied |        1 | <a href="?q=user/1/edit" class="active">view</a>  | /drupal-4.6.5/?q=user/1/edit                            | 192.168.0.2 | 1137896524 |
|  17 |   1 | user          |        0 |                                                   | /drupal-4.6.5/?q=user/login&destination=node            | 192.168.0.2 | 1137896554 |
|  18 |   0 | access denied |        1 | <a href="?q=admin/themes" class="active">view</a> | /drupal-4.6.5/?q=admin/themes                           | 192.168.0.2 | 1137897264 |
|  19 |   1 | user          |        0 |                                                   | /drupal-4.6.5/?q=user/login&destination=admin%2Fthemes  | 192.168.0.2 | 1137897270 |
|  20 |   0 | access denied |        1 | <a href="?q=admin/themes" class="active">view</a> | /drupal-4.6.5/?q=admin/themes                           | 192.168.0.2 | 1137897271 |
|  21 |   1 | user          |        0 |                                                   | /drupal-4.6.5/?q=user/login&destination=admin%2Fthemes  | 192.168.0.2 | 1137897726 |
+-----+-----+---------------+----------+---------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------+
7 rows in set (0.03 sec)

Sessions are created in the database; the sessions table is full of entries like these:

mysql> select * from sessions limit 10;
+-----+----------------------------------+-------------+------------+-----------------+
| uid | sid                              | hostname    | timestamp  | session         |
+-----+----------------------------------+-------------+------------+-----------------+
|   0 | 64f2a8f2f3235349f3bfae1e190466cf | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893849 | messages|a:0:{} |
|   0 | 1f70bf1106c4611dc10df4f596856cc0 | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893853 | messages|a:0:{} |
|   0 | f4a8727d662decb0b8a241e1c40bd334 | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893860 | messages|a:0:{} |
|   1 | 9a69716265943fa156061522a320b956 | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893876 |                 |
|   0 | 5500f8102c30e84d6bda5ec1679a72fe | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893878 | messages|a:0:{} |
|   1 | 77812963fe76b950aff6af01d38db466 | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893886 |                 |
|   0 | b77626bea94ec3f03c94145d138a9a8b | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893887 | messages|a:0:{} |
|   1 | 0f432d7e2a7fb19ecddfaf2b4f47cbf1 | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893898 |                 |
|   0 | 049954877fb3f62411c4ac4d15700c80 | 192.168.0.2 | 1137893899 | messages|a:0:{} |
|   1 | 0291e473437e3d7a1e88a184ff303fcc | 192.168.0.2 | 1137894057 |                 |
+-----+----------------------------------+-------------+------------+-----------------+
10 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Reading around on drupal.org, I have tried all of the following to fix the problem, without success:

- setting individually, and in combination, the php.ini settings (restarting apache each time):
session.save_handler = user
register_long_arrays = On
magic_quotes_gpc = Off
session.cookie_path = /
session.cookie_domain =

- changing the privacy settings in IE to always accept session cookies (however I don't think the problem is with the browser because drupal.org and other session-based sites work, and the problem with my Drupal installation is the same whether I use IE or Firefox)

- resetting my password with:

update users set pass=MD5('desiredpassword') where uid=1;

- enabling clean URLs with:

insert into variable values ('clean_url', 'b:1;');

and changing RewriteBase in the supplied .htaccess file to read:
RewriteBase /tz/drupal-4.6.5

since that is the URL of my drupal homepage (minus domain name). In any case, clean URLs did not seem to become enabled; phpinfo(); reports that mod_rewrite is loaded.

- putting the site in the document root of the web server

None of these things has worked. I am unable to login as administrator and make any changes.

Using the same MySQL server, Drupal files (with $baseUrl changed) already-deployed database, but with the Drupal files hosted on my IIS 5.1 dev box running its own copy of PHP 5.1.2, Drupal works perfectly. However, the final deployment will be to Apache 2 so I have to get it working on that.

I'd really like to try out Drupal to see if it suits my needs but I'm almost at the point of giving up and going elsewhere. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get it working, I'd be happy to hear them :-)

Katy.