Need Help figuring issue when updating - cakephp

Question

I am having problems with updating records using cakephp, this is the second time it happens and cant figure out what it is.. When I click on 'Submit' to update a record it always, always sends me to the login and it either logs me in or logs me out.. I dont understand..and it never updates the record it just jumps to the login stuff...the registration page same thing.. it was working before.. the only thing i changed.. was in app_controller instead of specifying the controls to allow I just added the '*' for all and now its not allowing to update or save anything.. the reason why i did that was because other pages that are under pages/contact_us or pages/about_us they were also being blocked by the Auth but with the '*' it went away..
In my App_Controller I have set it up to allow everything in the before filter, also in the controller itself i have a beforeFilter again saying the same thing.. I have tried about everything.. Here is my code
App_Controller
<?php
class AppController extends Controller {
var $helpers = array('Html', 'Form', 'Javascript', 'Session');
var $components = array('Auth', 'Session');
function beforeFilter() {
$this->Auth->allowedActions = array('*');
$this->Auth->autoRedirect = false;
}
}
?>
one of my controllers where I update
<?php
class DishRatingsController extends AppController {
function list_ratings() {
$this->loadModel('Dish');
$this->set('list_ratings', $this->Dish->find('all'));
$this->layout = 'master_layout';
}
function rate_dish($id = null)
{
$this->layout = 'master_layout';
$this->set('rate_dishes', $this->DishRating->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
'Dish.id' => $id
)
)));
if(!empty($this->data)) {
if($this->DishRating->save($this->data)) {
$this->Session->setFlash("Rating Saved!");
$this->redirect(array('action' => 'dish_ratings'));
}
// set master layout
}
}
function beforeFilter() {
parent::beforeFilter();
$this->Auth->allowedActions = array('*');
}
}
and My view where the submit button is
<?php
echo $this->Form->create('DishRating', array('action' => 'rate_dish'));
echo '<div><h3>Rate this Dish...</h3><p>You can rate this dish on this page and view other ratings from out customers... </p></div>
<table id="recipes">
<tr>
<td style="padding:10px;">';
//<input type="hidden" name="userID" value="'.$rate_dishes[0]["DishRating"]["user_id"].'">
echo $this->Form->hidden('id', array('value'=> $rate_dishes[0]["DishRating"]["user_id"]));
//<input type="hidden" name="dish_id" value="'.$dish_rateid.'">
echo $this->Form->hidden('rate_id', array('value'=> $rate_dishes[0]["DishRating"]["dish_id"]));
echo '
<span style="font-size: 20px; vertical-align:top;">Comments</span>
</td>
<td style="padding:10px;">';
echo $this->Form->input('comments', array('type' => 'textarea', 'escape' => false , 'rows'=>'2','cols'=>'40', 'div' =>'false', 'label'=>''));
//<textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="2"></textarea>
echo '</td>
<td>
<div>
<input name="star1000" value "1" type="radio" class="star"/>
<input name="star1000" value="2" type="radio" class="star"/>
<input name="star1000" value="3" type="radio" class="star"/>
<input name="star1000" value="4" type="radio" class="star"/>
<input name="star1000" value="5" type="radio" class="star"/>
</div>
</td>
<td>';
// <input type="submit" value="Submit" name="submitrating" class="button"/>
echo $this->Form->end(array('value'=>'Submit','name'=>'submitrating', 'type' =>'submit', 'class'=>'button'));
echo '</td>
<tr>
</table>';
print("<table id='results'><tr><th>User Name</th><th>Comments</th><th>Star Rating</th></tr>");
$j = 0;
foreach ($rate_dishes as $key => $rate_dish):
print("<tr>");
print("<td width='20px'>");
print("<p style='font-size:14px; color:blue; padding:0;'>".$rate_dishes[$j]['User']['username']."</p>");
print("</td>");
print("<td width='100px'>");
print("<p style='font-size:14px; color:blue; padding:0;'>".$rate_dishes[$j]['DishRating']['rate_comments']."</p>");
print("</td>");
print("<td width='100px'>");
print("<div>");
for($i = 1; $i < 6;$i++)
{
if($i != $rate_dishes[$j]['DishRating']['rate_num'])
{
echo '<input name="star'.$j.'" type="radio" class="star" disabled="disabled"/>';
}
else
{
echo '<input name="star'.$j.'" type="radio" class="star" disabled="disabled" checked="checked"/>';
}
}
print("</div>");
print("</td>");
print("</tr>");
$j++;
endforeach;
print("</table>");
if($j> 6)
{
echo '<div id="pageNavPosition"></div>
<div> </div>';
echo $this->Html->script('padminbottom.js');
}
?>
Please help solve this issue, I have researched, went to the cakePHP cookbook, nothing...

Answer 1

if you want to allow every action of every controller your beforeFilter in app_controller should be like
function beforeFilter() {
$this->Auth->allow('*');
$this->Auth->autoRedirect = false;
}
specifying $this->allowedActions is a different thing and in that case your Auth's authorize variable should be set to 'controller'. That means whenever a user requests an action he/she will be checked for their correct username, password. After that user will be checked by the isAuthorize() function implemented by every controller to grant access based on some additional logic.
Since you are not using that feature you don't need to specify allowedAction. If you are using controller for authorization specifying allowedActions will allow certain actions by default without checking them in Controller::isAuthorize().