still losing session userdata across a redirect

So sessions are working but when you use a redirect your session is resetting? Is that correct? If you session is resetting then flash data would be lost too of course.

Exactly. I can set the session userdata fine. And I can see that it is being written to at least one session file. In a typical test, 3 session files are created. One includes my data

__ci_last_regenerate|i:1512137748;isUserLoggedIn|b:1;userId|s:1:"1";userid|s:24:"cmljaGIyMDFAZ21haWwuY29t";

another one is blank. And the third has just __ci_last_regenerate|i:1512137807;

The problem is after a redirect the $_SESSION is not being repopulated. I tried stopping the code at the fread to see if it was being read properly, but the file locking causes a crash if I do that. 

I see many people posting with the same problem. I do need to be able to tell is the user has already been authenticated and the email of the user. 

proof that an old dog can learn new tricks