This question came across the ColdFusion User Group just recently. The developer has some type of login form, followed by a query that validates the user’s information. It then attempts to set a cookie then redirect to another page. The subsequent page checks for the existence of the cookie, and if it is not set will relocate back to the login page. The developer kept getting kicked back to the login page, as if the cookie was never set.

In this case it wasn’t. The reason is because when you do a CFLOCATION existing headers will be cleared out, and the Location header will be sent instead, cause the browser to redirect the user to a new page. The cookie header will be completely ignored!

Here is a sample on how to set the cookie, make sure the client browser gets the cookie, THEN redirect.

<cfset getPageContext().getOut().clearBuffer() />
<cfcookie name="testingCookies" value="#form.userName#" />
<cfflush />

<cflocation url="postLogin.cfm" />

Happy coding!