has anyone had an issue were ColdFusion session variables never timeout on a server?

tmike12345 wrote: The TimeStamp session variable never times out and once it is set the first time. I can leave the page up for days and it still won't time-out. My maximum session timeout on the server is set to 2 days. The only way to get rid of the session variables is to clear the cookies on the browser.

You should not expect a custom session variable to timeout. That wont happen because it is contrary to the design of sessions.

What times out is the session itself, rather than a variable in it. However, the setting This.Sessionmanagement=true implies that ColdFusion will always provide a session whenever a user opens a page. So, session 1 may time out, but new session 2 may start. It, too, may later time out if left idle for a while, giving way to new session 3. Whereas, the variable session.timestamp may continue to be defined in session 3, as it once was in session 1 and in session 2.

The most obvious way to verify whether a session has timed out is to check for a change in the system variables session.CFID and session.CFToken. Such a change means the beginning of a new session. That is, of course, one consequence of the end of a session.

You will be glad to know that Application.cfc itself automatically knows when a session has ended. Its onSessionEnd event will fire when a session ends. I have included it in the following suggestions:

<cfcomponent>

<cfset This.name = "TestApplication">
<cfset This.Sessionmanagement=true>

<!--- Session timeout usually set at 20 to 30 minutes (comes from studies on users on the web) --->
<cfset This.Sessiontimeout="#createtimespan(0,0,20,0)#">
<cfset This.applicationtimeout="#createtimespan(5,0,0,0)#">

<cffunction name="OnApplicationStart">
<!--- A page setting: does not belong here--->

<!---<cfsetting showdebugoutput="yes" enablecfoutputonly="No">--->
</cffunction>
<cffunction name="OnRequestStart">

<!--- Generally bad practice to display anything in the Application file--->
<!--- <cfdump var="#this#">--->
</cffunction>

<cffunction name="onSessionStart">

<cfset session.timestamp = now()>

</cffunction>

<cffunction name="onSessionEnd">

<cfargument name = "sessionscope" required="yes">

<cfargument name = "appscope" required="yes">

<cflog file="#this.name#" type="information" text="The session #arguments.sessionscope.sessionid# started at #arguments.sessionscope.timestamp# and ended at #now()#">

</cffunction>

</cfcomponent>

Index.cfm page

<!--- The setting This.Sessionmanagement=true means the session will always be defined. There is therefore no need to test for its existence--->

<cfdump var="#Session#">
<cfdump var="#Application#">