What potential issue could cause the $PHP_AUTH_USER variable to be empty in a PHP script?

The potential issue that could cause the $PHP_AUTH_USER variable to be empty in a PHP script is that the server configuration may not be set up to pass the authentication information to the PHP script. This could happen if the server does not have the necessary modules enabled or if the .htaccess file is not properly configured. To solve this issue, you can try to set the PHP_AUTH_USER variable manually by accessing the server headers directly. This can be done using the $_SERVER superglobal array and checking for the presence of the Authorization header.

if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'])) {
    list($type, $data) = explode(' ', $_SERVER['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'], 2);
    if (strtolower($type) == 'basic') {
        list($username, $password) = explode(':', base64_decode($data));
        $PHP_AUTH_USER = $username;
    }
}