Apache stuck with working after Xdebug was installed. Ioncube loader error

Question

I have a local installation of Ubuntu Server 12.10 via VirtualBox for my PHP programming purposes.

Recently I've installed the Xdebug in this way:

sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug

Then added 'xdebug' path to my /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini:

zend_extension=/usr/lib/php5/20100525+lfs/xdebug.so

Then I restarted apache. And, it got stuck. My local sites are not loading. The 'php -v' (as well as 'php -m') says:

PHP Fatal error: [ionCube Loader] The Loader must appear as the first entry in the php.ini file in Unknown on line 0

Thing is that I don't have Ioncube installed. I tried to google this error-mesage, but everywhere said that it seems a wrong installed Ioncube, or something with xdebug and ioncube incompatibility. But I dont have inocube installed at all!

What is wrong? How can I make my apache live again? Projects are burning :(

UPDATE:

I've found a reason. It seems that 'php5-xdebug' package has a built-in fix for the ioncube-xdebug incompatibility. When I installed it, I got the file /etc/php5/conf.d/ioncube.ini where ioncube included as zend extension. I got this file with the php5-xdebug package. So I removed that file and apache became live.

Machute

I don't have a full answer for you, but I would say that you shouldn't need to edit php.ini to enable xdebug. Installing the package should have added an xdebug file in /etc/php5/conf.d/ which includes the extension line. If you have both that might cause issues, so you could try removing the line you added to php.ini. – Hermineherminia

You could also try disabling xdebug, and assming PHP then starts up okay, check phpinfo to see if there's anything ioncube related. – Hermineherminia

Thank you, Tim. I sorted this out. – Machute

Answer 1

Ioncube must be loaded before any other extension, so to fix this problem do this:

1. goto /etc/php5/conf.d
2. type mv ioncube.ini 01-ioncube.ini
3. restart apache service apache2 restart
4. Enjoy with ioncube and xdebug :)

Hunchback

thank you so much. the solution for me was slightly varied, with just moving the 1 line in /etc/php5/conf.d/*-ioncube.ini into the PHP config file (for me, it was @ /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini). Then restarting apache/nginx (for me, it was nginx, so the command was "sudo service nginx restart"). – Timeconsuming

The ioncube installer script auto generates an ini file prefixed by 20-. For me this failed because it was getting loaded after another extension opcache which has symlink 05-opcache.ini. changed name to 05-ioncube.ini and all is good. – Mantellone

ioncube is stupid. Changing it to 01-ioncube.ini from 20-ioncube.ini worked in the /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d – Coroneted

Answer 2

Comment ioncube loader in the includes foldes of apache installation and move it to extensions block in php.ini so it would look like this:

    zend_extension = /usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/ioncube_loader_lin_5.3.so
    zend_extension = /usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/xdebug.so

Basically you must load ioncube first and only then xdebug.

Tbilisi

can you know what's the reason for add lib in this order? – Club