How to debug PHP with netbeans and Xdebug - php

Question

I have recently tried to get going with Netbeans 6.5 after it rated so highly in the IDE review by Smashing magazine. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/11/the-big-php-ides-test-why-use-oneand-which-to-choose/
My main reason for switching from Notepad++ is that I'd like to be able to debug my code and set through it.
I have followed the instructions about how to install xdebug from both the vendor http://xdebug.org/ and the netbeans web site. http://www.netbeans.org/kb/docs/php/debugging.html#gettingReady but to no avail.
How is it done, has anyone else got debugging working in netbeans?
(My setup is: Windows XP, Wamp server 2.0, PHP 5, Netbeans 6.5.1)

Answer 1

It's important to add this line in the php.ini:
xdebug.idekey="netbeans-xdebug"
Note: In NetBeans go to Settings and look where the xdebug stuff is set up. Look for that Session ID. In my case it was netbeans-xdebug.

Answer 2

hm, for me, the netbeans was the first ide that php debugging was working out of the box.
Does the xdebug show in phpinfo? if it does it should work with default settings. the only one that is needed is:
xdebug.remote_enable=on
So if this isn't enabled put it in your php.ini file, restart apache, and debugging should work.
If not, you will have to supply more info for me to help you.
sy

Answer 3

I have since found that WAMP, when installed with Mod_rewrite and cURL cannot cope with Xdebug.
It is a known error and crashes everytime.
http://phphints.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/wampserver-phpini-settings-for-use-with-xdebugdll-pear-and-silverstripe-cms-framework/
Unfortunately, I am using these 2 libraries too.

Answer 4

It's not a know problem that xdebug gives issues with curl or mod_rewrite. The only issues I am aware of is with Xdebug on Vista.

Answer 5

You can see here:
http://ruilima.com/2010/11/ambiente_de_desenvolvimento_php_netbeans_xdebug/
is in Portuguese, but there is a pre configured virtual machine with Ubuntu 10.10, netbeans, php, mysql, xdebug, ready to use. take a look

Answer 6

I found out that in Netbeans you need to set the webroot path in the projects to app/webroot. If you do this debugging works flawlessly.

Answer 7

If you are using xampp under Windows:
You only need to open your php.ini file and change these two lines
;xdebug.profiler_enable = 0
;zend_extension = "C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug.dll"
into
xdebug.profiler_enable = 1
zend_extension = "C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug.dll"
(Caution: If your xampp version is old, you must download it from http://xdebug.org/download.php, download the 32 bit even your OS is 64 bit. E.g. the xdebug's name you downloaded is php_xdebug-2.2.1-5.4-vc9.dll. First copy php_xdebug-2.2.1-5.4-vc9.dll to the directory C:\xampp\php\ext\, then your the second line will be zend_extension = "C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug-2.2.1-5.4-vc9.dll)
After that stop apache and start again, that's it.

Answer 8

If you're having the problem in which Apache decides to crash whenever you run the debugger (which is what I had and is extremely annoying). I'm fairly sure I re-installed xampp and re-set up xdebug. I think the problem was to do with the zend-debugger being set up weirdly in php.ini and me not modifying the correct php.ini.
Eventually after re-installing and resetting it up I got it working fine.
I now run a dev release of Netbeans which has networked debugging with xdebug so we run it all off of our development server and it works a treat.
Good Luck, There isn't particularly any decent documentation on how to set up xdebug with net beans.

Answer 9

I have had occasional issues with NetBeans and XDebug which have been down to a Watch statement being in place which does not relate to the code being debugged.
In this case the debugger just fails with a Socket Exception.
Remove any watches if you find this is causing your issue. Generally though I have found XDebug to be extremely handy!
I do realise however that this may not relate to the issue you have here but it's worth being aware of.

Answer 10

found the solution of the same problem on the same site PHP Netbeans: xdebug stops on every include() or require()

Answer 11

Well wrongdoing was, forgetting
[xdebug]
as a section header in php-ini. And of course, "park" your stuff right before another section start (e.g. [Date] or [iconv]) otherwise you will accidetenly place those in the wrong section. (In the comment djungle of php.ini this happens easily.)

Answer 12

In my case it was a process running on my machine (Windows 7) that was using port 9000 already called aeagent.exe
I changed my php.ini setting to "xdebug.remote_port=9001", made the corresponding change in netbeans, then restarted Apache. Now it works.
Thanks to SysInternals TCPView tool.

Answer 13

Go to http://wiki.netbeans.org/HowToConfigureXDebug . There is a big list of steps you should follow, that might help you out.
But most likely you just need a new version of xdebug-binary. Go to http://xdebug.org/wizard.php to find out what binary you need und your problem might be solved.

Answer 14

When running netbeans under Ubuntu, I was facing this issue too, it seems that I have tried all solutions found in internet but all in vain.
The only thing that finally helped was running netbeans with SUDO command! Looks like regular user didn't have permission to listen on port 9000 (or any other).
sudo netbeans &
...and voila, I can debug again! Maybe it'll save you a day or two

Answer 15

Now its working after Wasting the 3 hours for making xdebug work on Windows8 with wamp 2.2
replacing original lines below [xdebug] with following
zend_extension = "c:/wamp/bin/php/php5.3.13/zend_ext/php_xdebug-2.2.0-5.3-vc9.dll"
;make sure path of your own php_xdebug, dll version may vary.
[xdebug]
xdebug.remote_enable = on
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_host=localhost
xdebug.remote_port=9000
;recheck your port number in netbeans [Tools=>options=>php=>debugging there it is: debugging port]
xdebug.profiler_enable = on
xdebug.profiler_enable_trigger = on
xdebug.profiler_output_name = cachegrind.out.%t.%p
xdebug.profiler_output_dir = "c:/wamp/tmp"
Now click on wamp icon in taskbar and "restart all services"
Well..Now final step>>START NETBEANS AS ADMINISTRATOR
Holly soul of windows8 i hate you :<

Answer 16

Go through the below document for remote debugging using NetBeans.
http://stuporglue.org/setting-up-xdebug-with-netbeans-on-windows-with-a-remote-apache-server/