It seems that session management for Java servlets does not work consistently. It works for simple JSP pages in public_html: https://secege.heliohost.org/test.jsp however, when the JSP page is part of a .war deployed application, it does not seem to work: http://secege.heliohost.org/HelioSecure/ (which runs index.jsp) Both JSP pages contain this code: <% out.print("Test: "); String test = (String) session.getAttribute("some"); if (test != null) { out.println("from session: " + test + "<br>"); } session.setAttribute("some", "A thing");%> Any help is appreciated.