Breakpoints not hit with xdebug, PhpStorm and Laravel 3 / mod_rewrite

Question

I'm pretty desperate and running out of ideas:

I've configured xdebug and PhpStorm for a Laravel 3 project. Running the project locally on Mac OS X Apache, so PhpStorm and the web application run on the same machine. Configured a virtual host so that localhost.lt points to Laravel's public directory.

Relevant xdebug entries in php.ini:

zend_extension = /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/xdebug.so
[xdebug]
xdebug.idekey="PHPSTORM"
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.profiler_enable=1
xdebug.remote_log=/var/log/xdebug_remote.log
xdebug.remote_connect_back=1

Confirmed that extension gets loaded.

Set up a PHP Web Application debug / run configuration without any path mappings as nothing is symlinked and the folders on the web server and for PhpStorm are exactly the same (as the web server is on the same machine).

When launching via "Debug" from the IDE, xdebug_remote.log correctly shows the breakpoint we've set in one of the files in application/libraries:

<- breakpoint_set -i 5 -t line -f
file:///Users/RalfR/src/livetime/application/libraries/LiveTime.php -n 676
->
<response xmlns="urn:debugger_protocol_v1" xmlns:xdebug="http://xdebug.org/dbgp/xdebug" command="breakpoint_set" transaction_id="5" id="9230016"></response>

However, when we click a link that invokes the function from the LiveTime.php library, the breakpoint is NOT hit. The log shows:

<- stack_get -i 6 -> 
<response xmlns="urn:debugger_protocol_v1" xmlns:xdebug="http://xdebug.org/dbgp/xdebug" command="stack_get" transaction_id="6"><stack where="{main}" level="0" type="file" filename="file:///Users/RalfR/src/livetime/public/index.php" lineno="14"></stack></response>

<- run -i 7 -> 
<response xmlns="urn:debugger_protocol_v1" xmlns:xdebug="http://xdebug.org/dbgp/xdebug" command="run" transaction_id="7" status="stopping" reason="ok"></response>

<- run -i 8
Log closed at 2013-04-22 21:03:57

As many frameworks, Laravel uses .htaccess mod_rewrite to pipe everything through public/index.php. May this be the cause for PhpStorm / xdebug not catching the breakpoint in application/libraries/LiveTime.php as it appears to xdebug that the LiveTime.php script is never executed?

If so, how can we solve this problem?

Answer 1

You need to set the Path Mappings You don't need to set it for each file. To resolve my issue, I went to the IntelliJ (same for PHPStorm) Preferences > PHP > Servers .. selected my server and set the following (see note 2 below):

NOTE 1: I could also have set the path directly to the project root, but since I am not interested in debugging anything other than my Laravel "public" folder and my application, I only set paths for those 2 folders. After this everything worked perfectly.

NOTE 2: The image shown above is not from the "Settings" dialog referred to in the steps above, but rather from the "Resovle Path Mapping Problem" dialog which presents you with the same map mappings widget which works the same way. Fixings the settings in either place will work. The Resolve Path Mapping Problem dialog will appear if you have no server debug settings to start with and the IDE detects a mapping problem, at which point it will also create the server settings for you.

Answer 2

In my case, the cause of the "breakpoint_set" / "command is not available" problem was disabled xdebug.extended_info option (it is enabled by default but I disabled it for profiling).
Breakpoints do not work then xdebug.extended_info is disabled.
I have got breakpoints worked after reenabling xdebug.extended_info.

Answer 3

For those who are using Netbeans and Laravel, you need to set the "Web Root" as your public folder which located in your project->Properties->Sources.