Vtiger API session expires silently after 15–30 minutes of inactivity

The problem: Vtiger uses PHP session-based authentication. The sessionName you receive after login is tied to a server-side PHP session. PHP sessions have a session.gc_maxlifetime (default 1440 seconds / 24 minutes). Any session inactive for that duration is garbage-collected.

Solution 1 — Implement session auto-renewal in your client:

php

function vtiger_call(string $op, array $params): array {

    $result = make_api_call($op, $params);

    if (isset($result['error']['code']) &&

        in_array($result['error']['code'], ['SESSION_EXPIRED','INVALID_SESSION_ID'])) {

        $this->sessionName = vtiger_login($this->username, $this->accessKey);

        $params['sessionName'] = $this->sessionName;

        $result = make_api_call($op, $params);

    }

    return $result;

}

Solution 2 — Send a heartbeat call every 10 minutes:

GET /webservice.php?operation=getCurrentUser&sessionName=YOUR_SESSION

Solution 3 — Increase PHP session lifetime on your server:

ini

session.gc_maxlifetime = 86400

session.cookie_lifetime = 86400