custom login form redirect problem

Question

I'm facing a strange problem here with this custom login form:

<form name="loginformfooter" class="loginform" id="loginformfooter" action="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/wp-login.php" method="post">

   <input type="text" name="log" id="user_login" class="input" tabindex="1" />
   <input type="password" name="pwd" id="user_pass" class="input" tabindex="2" />
   <input type="submit" name="wp-submit" id="wp-submit" value="Login" />
   <input type="hidden" name="redirect_to" value="http://<?=$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];?>" />
   <input type="hidden" name="testcookie" value="1" />
</form>

The most of the times it redirect me to the correct page, but few other times, especially at first login, it redirects me to the admin page. I'm not able to determine precisely when the problem occours.

Does anyone found a problem like that? Or is there a better solution to get the same result?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Php Short tags are a "no-no"

You shouldn't use short php like this: value="http://<?=$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];?>"

Where does it come from?

Different servers, different php.ini files. You simply ran into the problem that short_open_tag = Off is set. Not all servers have this set to true per default. Further more not all hosts allow editing the php.ini file - for good reasons.

Check ini settings

Try the follwing inside your code:
<?php echo 'short open tag: ' . ini_get('short_open_tag'); ?>.

Set ini settings

If you see that it's off you can try turning it on in your php.ini file using..
<?php ini_set('short_open_tag', 'ON'); ?>.

Alternatively (per t31os's suggestion)

If the login page is the first page on your site you request, there is no request URI to pass along, so naturally a redirect won't happen because there's no request URI to send you to.