Query help/question.

[d_blakejr]

I am querying the db for a list of people, and within that query I am linking to the sessions table with the persons id number to check to see if there online. The problem is if a person has two sessions, then it returns and empty row. The gc removes after 15mins I think, or on logout. But if they dont logout and then say comeback in 5mins with new browser, they get new session and there old one is still in there. Below is my query.

$query = "SELECT profile_general.id, sessions.id as session FROM profile_general LEFT JOIN sessions ON sessions.id = profile_general.id WHERE profile_image != '' ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 6";

If there is two rows in the session table with that id number, it returns an empty row, im sure if they had 3 sessions it would return 2 empty rows. Also I know that this won't happen too often but I hate the fact that it does.

I have a temp fix with php until I can figure out a solution to this. Here is what I do, but I want to be able to remove this and have the query work right.

$counter = 4;
while($row = $db->fetchByAssoc($result)) {
if($counter > 0) {
//get user information
$view_id = $row['id'];
$view = get_profile_info($view_id);

//added just in case user has two sessions
if(!in_array($view_id, $session_id)) {
$session_id[] = $view_id;

//get online
$online = ($row['session'] == $view_id) ? "<span class=\"online\">Online</span>" : "Offline";

$counter--;
}
}


Im have a LIMIT of 6 but I am only displaying 4. That way a blank row shouldnt come up ever.

So my main question is how can I optimize/fix my query to prevent empty sets?

Thanks,
Dennis