sessions (version 5.1 to 5.2 )

Dear PHP gurus, I moved to PHP from asp around version 4.something. When i tried using sessions on my site, they just wouldn't work. No error messages, just wouldn't work. There was a session ID generated, but if i tried.... $_SESSION['test'] = "somedata"; <a href="page2.php">check session value</a> on page one and click on the link to page two with something like this, echo $_SESSION['test']; nothing was displayed. I was just playing with php at that point and just ignored it and looked into .NET for a few months, (non related issue). Once I upgraded to version 5.2, (i noted that in version 5.1, sessions still didn't work), the problem disappeared, but i didn't notice anything in the bug list of 5.1 noting this. Now an associate is having the same problem on a site that is not planning to upgrade past 5.1 anytime soon. What are we missing? Note; I spent many hours trying to save session data in a db and other setting changes to no avail. strange. i must be missing something simple. Thanks - php rocks! Cheers from Shanghai Fritz