PHP's configuration setting 'error_log' is not working

user_203119 0
Viewed 74977

What am I doing wrong here?

I have error_log set in the .ini file along with error_reporting = E_ALL | E_STRICT.

What else am I missing? This usually gave it to me. I want this set in the .ini file and not in my scripts.

Another interesting thing that is happening is that when I purposefully try and throw an error in one of my scripts, Apache restarts over and over again.

This is my event log after one error. Look at the timestamp.

Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Win32) PHP/5.3.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Server built: Sep 28 2009 22:41:08
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 1700
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Child 1700: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Child 3008: Released the start mutex
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Child 1700: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Child 1700: Starting 64 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:23 2009] [notice] Child 1700: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:24 2009] [notice] Child 3008: All worker threads have exited.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:24 2009] [notice] Child 3008: Child process is exiting
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Parent: child process exited with status 128 -- Restarting.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Win32) PHP/5.3.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Server built: Sep 28 2009 22:41:08
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 3656
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Child 3656: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Child 3656: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Child 3656: Starting 64 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Child 3656: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:53 2009] [notice] Parent: child process exited with status 128 -- Restarting.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Win32) PHP/5.3.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Server built: Sep 28 2009 22:41:08
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 3980
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 3980: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 3980: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 3980: Starting 64 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 3980: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Parent: child process exited with status 128 -- Restarting.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Win32) PHP/5.3.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Server built: Sep 28 2009 22:41:08
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 1600
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 1600: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 1600: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 1600: Starting 64 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:54 2009] [notice] Child 1600: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Parent: child process exited with status 128 -- Restarting.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Win32) PHP/5.3.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Server built: Sep 28 2009 22:41:08
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 1068
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Child 1068: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Child 1068: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Child 1068: Starting 64 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Child 1068: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Parent: child process exited with status 128 -- Restarting.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Win32) PHP/5.3.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Server built: Sep 28 2009 22:41:08
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:55 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 3220
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:56 2009] [notice] Child 3220: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:56 2009] [notice] Child 3220: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:56 2009] [notice] Child 3220: Starting 64 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 04 19:34:56 2009] [notice] Child 3220: Starting thread to listen on port 80.

This has been asked 1000 times and I have browsed through the different posts before posting this, but I have not found an answer. As long as I have been programming with PHP, this have always been a nightmare to get working.

error-log selinux error-logging php
15 Answers

Flimm's Troubleshooting Guide

Here is my troubleshooting guide to error_log() calls not working.

  1. Look at your server's configuration to find out where the default error log file is. This depends on which server you're using. To get you started, have a look at Apache's ErrorLog option if you're using Apache or Nginx's error_log option if you're using Nginx. Make sure it is set to a file. If you're using a tool like Valet, note that it's using server software like Nginx behind the scenes.

  2. Check the permissions of your server's error log file. On Unix-like systems, it should be writeable by the correct user and group, and the permissions of the parent directory and all its ancestors need to be correct as well. Use chmod and chown.

  3. Check the configuration of PHP in the .ini files. Specifically, check for log_errors = On and error_reporting = E_ALL | E_STRICT and error_log = /tmp/example/php_errors.log (see docs for log_errors, error_reporting and error_log configuration settings). To find the .ini file, look at the output of phpinfo();. If error_log is not set, by default it goes to the error log for the server, mentioned in the previous steps. If error_log is set to a file, it should already exist and be writeable, just like in previous steps. Remember to restart the server after configuration changes.

  4. Check that PHP's settings aren't being changed by server configuration. Your server's configuration (even .htaccess) can change PHP configuration settings. In Apache, this is done using php_admin_value and php_admin_flag (docs). For instance, you may find in your .htaccess file this line: php_admin_flag[log_errors] = off. Remember to restart the server after configuration changes. At this point, you should be able to create a test file test.php with the contents <?php error_log("test");, restart your server, and open the URL in your browser, and you should be able to see test in your error log (either the server's, or the one specified by error_log = ). But keep reading.

  5. Check that PHP's settings aren't being changed at run-time. The log_errors option can be changed at runtime by running ini_set('log_errors', 1);, and so can the other configuration options error_reporting and error_log. Also note there is a special error_reporting() PHP function which changes the configuration at run-time. Search your code-base for any invocations of ini_set or error_reporting. WordPress for example does run these depending on the value of WP_DEBUG.

Other things to look at: You may be having permission issues in SELinux (see this answer).

user_2476960

In my case, on a CentOS development server, after a full yum update, the permission on /var/log/http was changed to 700 and the user to 'root', so the user 'apache' wasn't able to enter or write into it.

It was still able to write into the existing file /var/log/httpd/error.log, but it wasn't able to create a new file, as I use date-suffixed log files.

Issuing the command

chown apache /var/log/httpd

solved the problem.

user_41218280

For me, manually creating the file, /var/log/php_error.log, solved the issue:

  1. In file php.ini, configure log to file

    log_errors = On
error_log = /var/log/php_error.log

  2. Restart Apache

    sudo systemctl restart apache2

  3. Create the log file, for example:

    sudo touch /var/log/php_error.log

  4. Give the correct rights (owner must be Apache)

    sudo chown www-data:root /var/log/php_error.log

    (And if not already set)

    sudo chmod 0644 /var/log/php_error.log

  5. Test this way, for example:

    sudo vim /var/www/.../index.php

    <html>
    <body>
        PHP file:
        <?php
            echo "Hello, World!";
            trigger_error("User error in PHP", E_USER_ERROR);
        ?>
    </body>
</html>

  6. Check the error is written

    sudo less /var/log/php_error.log
user_35149590

As bradym said, check whether you have write permissions to the directory where you PHP error log is located for the Apache user. If you created a log file with written permissions it's not enough; the directory should have them too.

user_3207610

For further debugging: phpinfo();

It shows the current error_log setting, next to the error_log value in phpinfo() and can be useful when a vhost isn't logging.

I ended up here after that setting got overridden from file php.ini and the vhost. I ended up logging to syslog.

user_37531300

I had the same issue and fixed it by doing this:

chmod 0777 -R /var/log/apache2
apachectl restart

I think PHP runs as user www-data while access to /var/log/apache2 is limited to root. So, this fixes it.

user_10314540

This did the trick for me.

setsebool -P httpd_unified 1

Please note, this would be the preferred method below to try first:

semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t 'errorLogNameHere.error.log
restorecon -v 'errorLogNameHere.error.log'

This answer was derived from the logs from executing this command line:

journalctl -xe

Further information on the system I was running on:

PHP 7.0 and CentOS 7

I am not sure if it's not obvious, but the issue was Apache's configuration to writing files. I did try chmod 777, chmod a+w on the logging directory, but this didn't work for me.

user_45165250
Related