Magento 2 Display Error Enable Error Reporting

This tutorial shows you how to enable error reporting in Magento 2.

In Magento 2, sometimes you’ll encounter a problem in which a black page or a plain white page appears with the error numbers like Error log record number: 568837792838 or any broken content error.

In the default setting of Magento 2, the function which allows displaying the error on the frontend is disabled. Therefore, in today’s post, I will guide you on how to display the error message or enable error reporting on Magento 2.

How to display error: Enable error reporting

• Method 1: Rename pub/errors/local.xml.sample file
• Method 2: Edit .htaccess file
• Method 3: Edit app/bootstrap.php file

Method 1: Rename pub/errors/local.xml.sample file

To display the error on the browser, you can simply rename a one XML file. However, this method is not recommended if you are in the production environment, so you should only consider using this for the development environment. Here is how you do it:

• Firstly, go to your Magento2 root directory.
• Then, open pub/errors.
• After you have opened it, you will see a file whose name is local.xml.sample.
• Rename it from local.xml.sample to local.xml. In other words, you remove the sample from the file’s name.
• Finally, go to System > Tools > Cache Management to refresh Cache from the Magento Admin.

Method 2: Edit .htaccess file

The second method to display the error is to edit the .htaccess file of your Magento 2 site. When editing the file you will be able to enable the development mode of Magento as well as the PHP’s error display settings.

Firstly, open the file .htaccess and write the following code at the end of that file:

php_value display_errors on ## enable PHP's error display settings
php_value error_reporting -1 ## set error display to E_ALL

After adding the code, open terminal/command-prompt and access the root directory of your Magento.

cd /path/to/your/magento/directory

Now, run the below command to activate the developer mode.

php bin/magento deploy:mode:set developer

The current deploy mode can be checked with this command:

php bin/magento deploy:mode:show

Finally, clear the Cache with the following command:

php bin/magento cache:clean

After following all the steps above correctly, you will see the error displays on the browser itself when browsing your Magento website. However, just like the first method, this is only good for the development environment.

Method 3: Edit app/bootstrap.php file

Besides editing .htaccess file which is the preferred way to enable error display on your Magento site, you can also edit the PHP file. To edit the file, follow the steps below:

• Firstly, access your Magento’s root directory.
• Then, open the file app/bootstrap.php .
• At the beginning of the file, you will see this line code:

  #ini_set('display_errors', 1);
  

  Once you saw it, please update the code to:

error_reporting(E_ALL); # Set Error Reporting as E_ALL (Report all PHP errors)
ini_set('display_errors', 1); # Un-commenting this line to enable PHP error display

After updating the code, open terminal/command-prompt and then go to the root directory of your Magento.

cd /path/to/your/magento/directory

Then, to enable the developer mode, the following command needs to be run

php bin/magento deploy:mode:set developer

In case you want to check the current deploy mode, you can use the below line:

php bin/magento deploy:mode:show

Finally, clear the Cache:

php bin/magento cache:clean

That’s it. After following all the steps above correctly, you will be able to see error displays on the browser.

Conclusion

In conclusion, although enabling Error Display on the Frontend is helpful in various situations, it is only suitable for Development Environment. If you move to the Production Environment, please undo your change. Hope that after reading this post, you will successfully display error Enable error reporting on your Magento 2 site.