I recently found out that unauthenticated users cannot use filters when I was working with the biblio (v 5) module. The root of the problem lies actually in the drupal core (v 5) and its session handling.

In drupal's session handling (session.inc) it is decided that if a user is not authenticated a dummy user is created via drupal_anonymous_user() from bootstrap.inc. This dummy user has no session associated with it. As filters are stored in $_SESSION a consequence of this decisions is that $_SESSION is always empty when being read and the user is unauthenticated - i.e. unauthenticated users cannot use filters. This problem exits also in the latest version 5.19!

I have posted this issue and a quick & dirty workaround @ http://drupal.org/node/455292#comment-1790820. I however thought I am creating a rather general issue here as it may affect other modules as well.

Comments

dpearcefl’s picture

dpearcefl commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

Considering the lack of activity on this issue and that Drupal v5 is no longer supported by fixes or patches, I am going to close this ticket.