IIS not displaying detailed PHP errors - shows server fault 500 instead

Question

I'm used to serving sites from Apache, but I am now forced to use an IIS server.

A number of my PHP pages are returning error 500 and I can't debug because IIS is suppressing the error messages. I've tried ini_set('display_errors',1); in code but to no avail.

Errors are shown on some sites but not the one in particular that I want to debug so I don't think it is a global PHP setting, but rather something to do with the site settings for that site.

I can't find a clear answer as to how to enable the displaying PHP errors.

I've found this link but am not sure where to find "system.webServer->httpErrors".

How can I enable the displaying errors in PHP under IIS?

Answer 1

How about logging them instead?

Edit php.ini and set

error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE
log_errors = On

And either

error_log = syslog to log to the Windows Event log, or

error_log = location/of/logfile to log to a file.

Answer 2

Assuming you have all the right settings in your php.ini file

1. Select your website in IIS Manager
2. On the right, double click Error Pages icon
3. On far right under 'Actions', click 'Edit Feature Settings' link
4. On pop up that appears, choose 'Detailed errors' radio button
5. Refresh your PHP page to see detailed errors

Thanks to last comment on this page

Answer 3

If you are using php with IIS:

1. Select your website in IIS
2. Select PHP Manager.
3. Select Configure error reporting.
4. Select Developer machine.
5. Hit Apply on the far top right in Action panel.

Answer 4

I found out, that it's a good idea to access an IIS-hosted page with InternetExplorer for testing.

In my case the php-error-logs where clean - got no clue from there.

I got a plain non-expressive "500 - internal server error" when connecting with firefox/chrome:

...but a more usefult error message ("HTTP Error 500.0 - Internal Server Error C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe - The FastCGI process exited unexpectedly") when using InternetExplorer:

Maybe also try connecting on from http://localhost on the server itself.