Sessions being lost, multiple stored, losing just one variable; Nightmare

[eluser]greg.thompson[/eluser]
Here's an update... If I remove the .htaccess info that removes the index.php all the sessions work fine. also If I leave the htaccess changes in there, when it didnt work before, if I echo out the session variables at the top, it works fine. really strange. print_r on the session makes it work, without it, it doesnt...