[Mediawiki-l] Login cookie alert problem

[Kim Binsted]

Hi.

My apologies if this is an old problem - I wasn't able to find a solution in 
the archives.

I have installed MediaWiki 1.6.10 because it doesn't require PHP 5.0 (my 
host still has version 4.42), and set it to require user login to edit, by 
having this in LocalSettings.php:

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;

The problem is, when someone tries to log in, they get the error:

"Login error: UHMFSwiki uses cookies to log in users. You have cookies 
disabled. Please enable them and try again."

The error is spurious - the user is actually logged in - but is very 
effective at discouraging edits!! The error appears even if the user has 
cookies enabled.

I found some bugzilla (3990) and mediawiki-l archive postings that sound 
similar. However, they say the solution is to disable session.auto_start in 
php.ini, and it is already disabled in my set up.

Any advice welcome! My apologies if this is a well-known issue with an 
obvious solution.

Kim.