php fatal error session.php line 71

[natebatty]

Did you ever find a fix for this? We also applied the patch 4755 and still run into this issue. Thanks in advance.

[leoquijano]

Hi everybody. We're also having this problem sporadically in a Magento 1.9.2.4 website. This is a big problem for us since it can bring the site down at random times (even during the night) and require support.

In our case the specific problem is the

[20-Jul-2016 22:10:59 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Call to a member function getBlockName() on a non-object in app/code/core/Mage/Captcha/Block/Captcha.php on line 43

protected function _toHtml()
{
$blockPath = Mage::helper('captcha')->getCaptcha($this->getFormId())->getBlockName();
$block = $this->getLayout()->createBlock($blockPath);
$block->setData($this->getData());
return $block->toHtml();
}

Sometimes it also fails in the Observer class:
/app/code/core/Mage/Captcha/Model/Observer.php

This is related to the getCaptcha($this->getFormId()). Some people here have pointed out that there's some kind of race condition, something that I agree with.

Is anyone at Magento taking care of this issue? I found an issue reported here, but no answer: https://www.magentocommerce.com/bug-tracking/issue/index/id/1030

[gelanivishal]

Hello @swimd,

Make sure your Var folder has proper permission.

When captcha image are created they first get store in var folder. Due to improper permission images will not be saved.This will result in a NULL object hence that error.

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