Auto-login works on dev but not on prod?

Hello all,
I wrote a small interface that auto-creates user accounts and albums as well as performs an auto-login when user goes to their album from the member page.
It works fine in the dev environment but not in prod.

I'm guessing caching or sessions are causing this. I had a quick look at the php.ini and they are looked identical. I need to review more thoroughly to make sure but thought I would ask if anyone has seen something similar and could point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance,
Jason

Code I'm using:

require_once($gallery2_dir.'embed.php');
$ret = GalleryEmbed::init(array(
                           'g2Uri' => $gallery2_dir,
                           'embedUri' => '/main.php',
                           'activeUserId' => $HTTP_SESSION_VARS['idNo']
                          ));
GalleryEmbed::done();
if ($ret) {
	$data['bodyHtml'] = $ret->getAsHtml();
	return $data;
       }
$gallery->setConfig('login', false);
$g2moddata = GalleryEmbed::handleRequest();