How to enable PHP error logging in cPanel

Switch on PHP error logging from cPanel's Select PHP Version tool so warnings and errors are written to an error_log file you can review when troubleshooting your site.

When something on your site misbehaves, the PHP error log is usually the quickest way to find out why. Before you can check it, PHP error logging needs to be enabled for your account.

Enabling PHP error logging

Select PHP Version in cPanel's Software section

The current PHP version and its extensions are shown.

The Select PHP Version screen showing PHP extensions

Switch to the PHP Options view (labelled Switch to PHP Options in some cPanel versions).

Switching to PHP Options in Select PHP Version

The PHP options for your account are listed.

The PHP Options screen in cPanel

Find error_reporting and click its current value.

The error_reporting option ready to be changed

Choose E_ALL from the drop-down menu to enable full error reporting, then apply/save the change.

Selecting E_ALL from the error_reporting drop-down

Where to find the errors

New PHP errors and warnings are written to a file named error_log in the folder the failing script runs from - for most sites that means your application's root folder, such as public_html.

Once you've finished troubleshooting, consider setting error_reporting back to its previous value - full error reporting can be noisy on a busy site.

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