PHP not debugging/showing error messages

Question

I've just installed lighttpd, and I'm not seeing any error messages on pages when I know errors must have occurred. All I get is a blank page. However, I do get the errors in the error log file - but I really want to see them while I develop instead of going into the log.

Surely lighttpd isn't supposed to do this?

Answer 1

In your php.ini, make sure you have:

display_errors = On

Answer 2

You might need to tweak your php.ini file.

The values you probably want to change are these:
error_reporting = E_ALL | E_STRICT
display_errors = On
display_startup_errors = On

It's not recommended to set these values on a production server, just dev machines.

If lighthttpd is like Apache, you'll also need to restart the service to pick up the new config changes.