I completely understand your frustration here. Following the Tutorial and the Cookbook got me nowhere. For whatever reason, I cannot get this to work:

use DBI;
use CGI;
use CGI::Session;

my $request = new CGI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:orientation", "user","pass", { Raise
+Error => 1});
my $session = new CGI::Session("driver:MySQL", $request, {Handle => $d
+bh});
[download]

However, this does:

use DBI;
use CGI;
use CGI::Session;

my $request = new CGI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:orientation", "user","pass", { Raise
+Error => 1});
my $session = new CGI::Session("driver:MySQL", $request, {Handle => $d
+bh, DataSource => "DBI:mysql:orientation", User => "user", Password =
+> "pass"});
[download]

I'm curious to find out why. I've tried to RTFM, but it gets me nowhere.

MrCromeDome