Windows PHP exec / shell_exec with phantomjs always returns null

Question

I'm running PHP 5.4.9 on Windows server

I've tried running all script commands in PHP (exec, shell_exec, system, proc_open, passthru). All seem to return empty or null.

I've added phantomjs as a PATH variable.

And running phantomjs --version in command prompt, and it returns 1.8.2

Although when I try to run

$return = exec("phantomjs --version")

or

$return = shell_exec("phantomjs --version", $output)

$return is always null and $output is empty.

I made sure IUSR and IIS_IUSRS users have permission to run phantomjs.exe

Safe mode is disabled in php.ini

Also, I tried running exec('ls') && exec('ipconfig /all'), and those output the data I'm expecting.

I'm not sure what else to try.

are you sure phantomjs is in the path of the shell being exec()'d by the server? just because it's in YOUR account's path, it may not be in the IUSR_IIS account's path. — Marc B
Try the following and see if either $out or $ret are populated. $out will be an array. exec('phantomjs --version'.' 2>&1',$out,$ret); — Gavin
when using Gavin's recommendation, $out returns an empty array, and $ret is 1. exec('phantomjs --version'.'2>&1',$out,$ret); out: array(0) { } ret: int(1) — Mike Jouwstra
Not especially helpful, but I can tell you that 1 is an error code (should be 0) and $out should have caught any output to standard out, so looks like there was none. If you have control over the server try setting the php process to run under a system account (for testing only) to clear the doubt of permissions issues. — Gavin

alegostack alegostack · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-22T08:27:18

I was facing the same problem.. The thing is phantomjs requires complete path for all Here is the solution I came up with:

$getout = exec('D:\\xampp\\htdocs\\phantomjsdir\\phantomjs.exe D:\\xampp\\htdocs\\rasterisejsdir\\rasterize.js http://localhost/pagetobecaptured/test D:\\xampp\\htdocs\\outputfiledir\\test2.jpg "1800px*840px"',$o,$e);

Windows PHP exec / shell_exec with phantomjs always returns null

2 Answers