Using the Built-in Debugging Tools
CiviCRM provides several URL-param debug settings which can help debug and resolve problems such as corrupt sessions and obsolete template caches. In order to use these URL parameters, you must first enable debugging from Administer CiviCRM » Global Settings » Debugging.
 | Do NOT Leave Debug Turned On in Production Sites
It is critical that the DEBUG features are disabled in production sites. When debug is enabled - system paths and other internal settings may be exposed to browsers. |
Debug Commands
- Smarty Debug Window - Loads all variables available to the current page template into a pop-up
window. To trigger, add '&smartyDebug=1' to any CiviCRM URL query string.
- Session Reset - Resets all values in your client session. To trigger, add '&sessionReset=2'
- Directory Cleanup - Empties template cache and/or upload file folders.
- To empty template cache (civicrm/templates_c folder), add '&directoryCleanup=1'
- To remove temporary upload files (civicrm/upload folder), add '&directoryCleanup=2'
- To cleanup both, add '&directoryCleanup=3'
- Stack Trace - To display stack trace at the top of the page when an error occurs, set Enable Backtrace from Administer CiviCRM » Global Settings » Debugging.
Resolving RELAY-DENIED Errors When Trying to Send Emails to Contacts
(under construction)
Configuring PHP to Handle Import Files from/on Macintosh Computers
In order for CiviCRM to properly handle CSV import files created on Macs, you may need to update a PHP setting for detecting line endings. The symptom of this problem is that the "Import Contacts: Match Fields" step shows the file as one big record - rather than recognizing the end of each row.
- Open /opt/local/etc/php.ini in your favorite editor (you may need root privileges to do this).
- Look for the following setting in the Fopen wrappers section (near line 525):
auto_detect_line_endings = On
- If this line is commented out, or set to Off, change the value to On as shown above.
- Stop and start your local instance of Apache
$ sudo /opt/local/etc/rc.d/apache2.sh stop
$ sudo /opt/local/etc/rc.d/apache2.sh start
Additional Debugging for the linuxly challenged like me.
Another great debugging resource that dlobo told me about is the Apache error log. The location of this file can vary depending on your server setup so you may need to do some hunting to find it.
Here's how I went about finding my error log. Also note, that they don't make it easy to find Apache since they call it httpd
You can use the whereis command to find possible locations for your httpd log.
whereis httpd
Here is what was returned on my server:
httpd: /usr/sbin/httpd.worker /usr/sbin/httpd /etc/httpd /usr/lib/httpd /usr/share/man/man8/httpd.8.gz
Some of the above are files, and others are directories. It turns out what I wanted is in the /etc/httpd directory.
# cd /etc/httpd
# ls
conf conf.d logs modules run
I looked at conf/httpd.conf and read through this to find out the error logging options. You can search for ErrorLog to find the location of the error logs and LogLevel to make some changes if you need to. I didn't have to make any changes to mine. The apache error logs were located in /etc/httpd/logs
Instead of using your apache error log, you can have the php error displayed in the browser. I used whereis php to locate my php.info file in /etc/php.ini. Search for "Error" and you will come to a section on error handling and logging. To show all errors and have them displayed, use the two following options.
error_reporting = E_ALL
display_errors = on
When you've figured out what is wrong and fixed it, go back and set these to what you had before. Especially turn display_errors to off.
Here's a great tip for checking out installation problems. http://www.nabble.com/ciivicrm-1.6-Default-Value-not-showing-profile-tf3377498s15986.html#a9400295
Make sure that all of the URL's in the settings files match, including the Resource URL in CiviCRM administration-
>global settings->resource URLs.They should match the Drupal file and also be the final domain name that eventually shows up in a web browser. For example, if you can use both http://example.com and http://www.example.com and your browser displays the www URL then that's the one you should use in all of your settings.