Error logs not being written

[jeking]

I'm working on an upgrade and getting blank pages. When I look in my logs folder, there are no errors. When I enable STRICT_ERROR_REPORTING, I do see the errors on the screen.

My logs folder is writable and I have not made any changes to either configure.php file relating to log files or folders.

[jeking]

I checked with the host. They did recently disable PHP functions:
show_source, system, shell_exec, passthru, exec, popen, proc_open, ini_set

Are any of these require for log files to be written?

[mc12345678]

I'm working on an upgrade and getting blank pages. When I look in my logs folder, there are no errors. When I enable STRICT_ERROR_REPORTING, I do see the errors on the screen.

My logs folder is writable and I have not made any changes to either configure.php file relating to log files or folders.

Writeable? What permissions specifically?

No changes to configure.php files? So, what regarding DIR_FS_LOGS is present if anything?

What makes you think an error is occurring? Any indication that the error is generated before/after zc error logging has been initiated?

[DrByte]

I checked with the host. They did recently disable PHP functions:
show_source, system, shell_exec, passthru, exec, popen, proc_open, ini_set

Are any of these require for log files to be written?

No. Those are not required for log writing.

Logs are written to /logs/ if the folder is writable (by the user account on the server which is running PHP/Apache), and if the enable_error_logging.php file is present in the extra_configures folder in both admin and catalog.

The DIR_FS_LOGS constant defaults to pointing to the /logs/ folder, and is no longer set in the configure.php file unless you've set your own define for it there for the purpose of overriding the default.

[jeking]

The folder is 755 and I also tried 777. The folder has the same ownership as all other folders.

enable_error_logging.php is present in both the admin and catalog folders.

Here's an example:
http://wheatonwebsiteservices dot net/zen155/graphics-cards-c-1_4/matrox-g400-32mb-p-2

Shouldn't this error be logged?

[DrByte]

Yes, I would expect it to be logged.

Maybe something about the server's configuration is denying application-level overrides to php directives.

[jeking]

While the PHP directives may not be needed for error logging, removing them solved the problem. I'm getting my error logs again.

It could be a server config that needs some in some way.

[DrByte]

Thanks for reporting back. Do you mind explaining in more detail what you removed?

[jeking]

Sure thing.

CSF (ConfigServer Security & Firewall) had a recommendation. To:
You should modify the PHP configuration and disable commonly abused php functions, e.g.:
disable_functions = show_source, system, shell_exec, passthru, exec, phpinfo, popen, proc_open
Some client web scripts may break with some of these functions disabled, so you may have to remove them from this list

I wanted to keep phpinfo but added the rest to the server php.ini file. After your comment about the server config, I removed all the php functions from the disable_functions line, simply to test the theory. Doing so is what got the error logs to record again.

I don't know which function(s) were really at fault. I didn't bother testing them one by one.

[DrByte]

Edit: previous statement retracted. I was wrong.

See lat9's post below.