I have read the forums from top to bottom and can't find anything which fixes my problem.

My setup is...
a VM running FC6 with PHP5.2.3

i have put the the correct dbg.so-5.2.x file into the modules folder and edited the php.ini file to include the extension before any zend extensions. restarted apache and yet nothing

//
zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/modules/dbg.so-5.2.x

yet when i run the phpinfo, it doesn't show up in the header, and if i run the dbg-wizard is also says the file isn't installed.

Is there something really obvious i have missed?

James

first try to run
ls -la /usr/lib/php/modules/dbg.so-5.2.x
and make sure it lists the file
(if it does not, you have to fix path in php.ini)

if it lists the file but still you don't get it loaded, check path to php.ini shown in phpinfo and make sure that it's the file you've edited.

Finally check apache error_log (normally found in /var/log/httpd/error_log)

all the file paths are ok, its loading the right php.ini file. the file names are correct.

Nothing unusaul in error logs either.

Forgot to mention this but it shouldn;'t make any difference, i'm trying to get it to work in a subdomain.

it has me stumped.

You can't have different modules loaded for a subdomain. When Apache lanches and initializes its chilren processes for further processing HTTP requests, it's not known what subdomain the requests will come for. Master process assigns them dinamically and for example if a particualr child [1003] has just processed subdomain#1, next time it can handle subdomain#2 and so forth. It can't change loaded modules dynamically according to the subdomain it's supposed to handle. Only settings such as "debugger.enabled" can be made dynamic and they are often dynamic.

So, list of loaded php extensions and apache modules is a contant for all subdomains. In this situation your can follow one of the 3 possible ways:
1) install and run seaprated Apache daemon to handle subdomains that need different set of apache modules and/or php extensions
2) run php as a CGI handler (not as php4apache module) and have different php and php.ini for different subdomains
3) have debugger loaded as is, disable it by default in php.ini and have it enabled for a particular subdomain (or subdomains).

1 - is the hardest way
2 - is the most flexible but will slow down the system
3 - is the simpliest way

sorry dmitri,

didn't quite make myself my clear, i have the modules in the right places etc and i do want the debugger work for any subdomain. Due to the VM setup i can't place the dbg-setup php file into the domain root so it has to into a subdomain.

Any more ideas?

I'm not sure what dbg-setup you mean. Standard php distro has no subdomain-specific configuration files. Is it something from your Web or OS?
In any case, there are TWO places where you can add zend_extension=/path/to/dbg.so
1st is main php.ini which is normally located in /etc directory (check Configuration File (php.ini) Path line in the phpinfo output)
2nd is config file(s) that php loads as part of php.ini (see Scan this dir for additional .ini files line in phpinfo output)

when I said dbg-setup i meant the dbg-wizard.php file.
I have checked the other potential location for a config file and its emtpy

This is what phpinfo says...

PHP Version 5.2.3

System Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 #1 SMP Mon Oct 16 14:37:32 EDT 2006 i686
Build Date Jul 19 2007 10:35:05
Configure Command './configure' '--build=i386-redhat-linux' '--host=i386-redhat-linux' '--target=i386-redhat-linux-gnu' '--program-prefix=' '--prefix=/usr' '--exec-prefix=/usr' '--bindir=/usr/bin' '--sbindir=/usr/sbin' '--sysconfdir=/etc' '--datadir=/usr/share' '--includedir=/usr/include' '--libdir=/usr/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/libexec' '--localstatedir=/var' '--sharedstatedir=/usr/com' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--cache-file=../config.cache' '--with-config-file-path=/etc' '--with-config-file-scan-dir=/etc/php.d' '--with-pear=/usr/share/pear' '--with-apxs2' '--enable-memory-limit' '--enable-libxml' '--enable-reflection' '--enable-spl' '--enable-zend-multibyte' '--with-zlib' '--with-bz2' '--enable-bcmath' '--enable-mbstring' '--with-mysql' '--with-pdo-mysql' '--with-pdo-pgsql' '--with-pgsql' '--with-iconv' '--enable-shmop' '--enable-soap' '--enable-xsl' '--enable-sysvmsg' '--enable-sysvsem' '--enable-sysvshm' '--enable-zip' '--with-openssl' '--enable-sockets' '--enable-calendar' '--with-png' '--with-jpeg' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--with-mhash' '--with-gd' '--enable-debug'
Server API Apache 2.0 Handler
Virtual Directory Support disabled
Configuration File (php.ini) Path /etc
Loaded Configuration File /etc/php.ini
Scan this dir for additional .ini files /etc/php.d
PHP API 20041225
PHP Extension 20060613
Zend Extension 220060519
Debug Build yes
Thread Safety disabled
Zend Memory Manager enabled
IPv6 Support enabled
Registered PHP Streams zip, php, file, data, http, ftp, compress.bzip2, compress.zlib, https, ftps
Registered Stream Socket Transports tcp, udp, unix, udg, ssl, sslv3, sslv2, tls
Registered Stream Filters string.rot13, string.toupper, string.tolower, string.strip_tags, convert.*, consumed, convert.iconv.*, bzip2.*, zlib.*

Zend logo This program makes use of the Zend Scripting Language Engine:
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2007 Zend Technologies


and this is my php.ini file...

and this is the bottom of my php.ini file


zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/modules/dbg.so-5.2.x
#extension=dbg.so-5.2.x

[debugger]
debugger.enabled=on
debugger.profiler_enabled=on
debugger.hosts_allow=10.0.1.40 localhost
debugger.hosts_deny=ALL
debugger.ports=7869, 10000/16


#zend_extension="/opt/PDFlib-6.0.4-Linux/bind/php5/php-520/libpdf_php.so"
#extension="libpdf_php.so"
#extension=ssh2.so
#extension=dbg.so-5.2.x




#zend_extension="/usr/lib/extensions/debug-non-zts-20060613/eaccelerator.so"
zend_extension="/opt/eaccelerator-0.9.5.1/modules/eaccelerator.so"
eaccelerator.shm_size="16"
eaccelerator.cache_dir="/tmp/eaccelerator"
eaccelerator.enable="1"
eaccelerator.optimizer="0"
eaccelerator.check_mtime="1"
eaccelerator.debug="0"
eaccelerator.filter=""
eaccelerator.shm_max="0"
eaccelerator.shm_ttl="0"
eaccelerator.shm_prune_period="0"
eaccelerator.shm_only="0"
eaccelerator.compress="1"
eaccelerator.compress_level="9"

Debug Build yes
^^^^^^^^^^^^

that's the problem.
You need to compile production-ready php, not a development build.
This option has nothign to do with debugging php scripts. It's for debugging php core.

zend_extension="/opt/eaccelerator-0.9.5.1/modules/eaccelerator.so"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is another potential problem that you may face up with after you get everything to work.
With opcode caches (like eaccelerator) that do not aware of debuggers, you can not debug php scripts.

Thank you for pointing that, would never have worked that out myself, have turned off the accelerator but still no joy. So it looks like i'll have to rebuild apache,
do you know what stops the debugger working in development build mode?

Seems you're reading too fast and did not get me right.
Did I tell you that the problem you've got has any relation to accelerator?
You have Debug Build of php. IT IS WHAT TROUBLES YOU.


development build of php requires zend_extension_debug= or zend_extension_debug_ts= directives (depending on threadsafe flag) and works with DEVELOPMENT BUILDS of corresponding extensions. IT WILL NOT WORK with debugger modules that are compiled for NONDEVELOPMENT build of php.