Hello Dmitry,

I had a little issue today. I tried to install the debugger on the new server. After the installation Apache server stopped working. Remembering warnings against drinking coffee when working with Linux servers and debuggers I kept looking what happened. And then I found in Apache log files that: 30-Mar-2007 08:36:52] PHP Fatal error: [ionCube Loader] The Loader must appear as the first entry in the php.ini file in Unknown on line 0.

Indeed, I put the debugger line before any other zend_extension(s) (Refer to the "Note: this line should appear before any other zend_extension(s)." on http://forum.nusphere.com/howto-install-debugger-module-t576.html). So the php.ini was:

[Zend]
zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/extensions/dbg.so-4.4.x
zend_extension=/usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so
zend_extension_manager.optimizer=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.0.1
<...>

I had to put zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/extensions/dbg.so-4.4.x after zend_extension=/usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so to make it work again. So now it is:

[Zend]
zend_extension=/usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so
zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/extensions/dbg.so-4.4.x
zend_extension_manager.optimizer=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.0.1
<...>

Could you make some comments about that? Thanks,

Julius

Requirement to put debugger before any other zend extensions relates to Zend's own extensions like zend optimizer loaded by their ext manager. This requirement is because of the bug in zend extension manager that they managed to replicate with every new version they release.

It does not relate to any other 3rd party modules like you mentioned. Although feel free to ask them why they require to appear before debugger Probably they know about that bug too and that's just their way to handle situation, they are calling exit(). Feel free to ask them why.

@Julius: Thank you very much for this tip I am deploying a project on a production server that has both the Zend Optimizer and IonCube Loader installed and could not get things the work with the DBG extension loading first. Loading the IonCube Loader before the DBG extension as you suggested, solved my problem.

@dmitri: Of course none of this is your fault or anything like that. However, I think it will help a couple of people if your instructions mention this issue with the IonCube Loader, and suggest that the DBG extension should be inserted after that, and before anything else