Disable HTML stack traces by Xdebug

Question

The administrator has installed Xdebug 2.1.1 in our shared PHP 5.3.0 server in order to use its debugger. Now, I can hardly read the stack traces of uncatched exceptions because they are formatted by Xdebug with annoying colours that interact badly with the site's CSS:

Since PHP runs as Apache module, I've tried to disable this feature in an .htaccess file but I can't make it go:

php_flag xdebug.default_enable Off
php_flag xdebug.overload_var_dump Off
php_flag xdebug.show_exception_trace Off
php_value xdebug.trace_format 1

phpinfo() shows my changes in the Local Value column but I can still see those horrible orange tables. What's the directive I need to change?

Hobnob

xdebug.org/docs/stack_trace – Snocat

Answer 1

Check for xdebug_disable()^Docs:

Disables stack traces

Disable showing stack traces on error conditions.

See as well xdebug.default_enable^Docs:

boolean xdebug.default_enable = true

If this setting is 1, then stacktraces will be shown by default on an error event. You can disable showing stacktraces from your code with xdebug_disable(). As this is one of the basic functions of Xdebug, it is advisable to leave this setting set to 1.

Snocat

xdebug.default_enable has no apparent effect, but calling xdebug_disable() on top of my code works fine. I'll see how to pack it in my web site settings. – Olomouc

Try to put xdebug.default_enable into the system's php.ini, maybe that works. Additionally probably using 0 instead of off in the .htaccess configuration might also help, but that's just an assumption, I have not tested it. – Snocat

Alright... I've done further testing and the directive is xdebug.default_enable but it seems there's a bug somewhere: in the shared development server it's ignored, in my local installation its fully honoured. – Olomouc

@Álvaro G. Vicario: Are you still using the .htaccess configuration method or are you using php.ini? Just asking for clarification. – Snocat

Just tried .htaccess (being a shared resouce, I don't want to disturb others). It's worth nothing that phpinfo() reports the directive as changed in all cases. I wrote a quick workaround with auto_prepend_file that works for me. – Olomouc

I was close to suggest auto prepend file as well, however I really wonder why the .htaccess rules do not properly work. Maybe it's a mod_php issue or something. – Snocat

xdebug.default_enable=off in php.ini worked with php5.4 on debian – Gripper

Answer 2

You need to make sure you have html_errors=0 in PHP as well. Also, orange isn't horrible ;-)

Zoril

I'm not sure I get it. I already use HTML errors, together with error_prepend_string and error_append_string so I can display line feeds. If I disable it, Xdebug does not draw HTML but that makes the error unreadable as well because everything's in a single line. I don't want to search for error messages in the View Source window... – Olomouc

Very useful if you are outputting json from PHP for use with Javascript, angular, and that all. – Plank

If @derick answers you had better listen. He wrote XDebug. – Grimbal

Answer 3

Add following code in the initialization Script:

 if (function_exists('xdebug_disable')) {
           xdebug_disable();
         }

Aeolic

Like Alvaro said, Option #2 here has nothing to do with displaying the HTML stack trace. – Syndetic

Updated as per suggestion. – Aeolic