CakePHP error on Heroku when Debug set to zero

0
votes

I have a CakePHP application setup on Heroku using the Heroku PHP buildpack (https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-php).

With Debug set to 1, the application uses the file cache and reduces the lifespan of the cache. In addition, the DebugKit toolbar appears.

With Debug set to 0, the application uses APC.

When I have Debug set to 1, it works properly, but the DebugKit toolbar shows up and the caching is essentially shutoff. When I set Debug = 0 I get the standard "Internal Error" message. Running "heroku logs" only shows me errors relating to php not being able to write to the tmp directory (specifically for error logs). I attempted to have cakePHP write to stdout, but that didn't help.

To see what exactly was causing the problem, I removed DebugKit from the installation and made the caching for Debug=1 match Debug=0. I thought this would cause the app to error again, but it's still working. Is there anything else that happens when Debug is turned off that could be causing this, or did I miss something with the error logs error?

2
cakephpheroku

2 Answers

4
votes

I managed to get this working eventually. The answer was to make sure the app/tmp directory and all of the children directories were being created by the buildpack. I was under the impression that cakePHP wouldn't worry about them if it didn't need them, but I was incorrect.

I wanted to keep them out of the repo, so in the buildpack compile file I added:

CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH="www/app/tmp"

# make tmp dir
echo "-----> Creating CakePHP tmp directories"
mkdir -p $CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH/cache/models
mkdir -p $CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH/cache/persistent
mkdir -p $CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH/cache/views
mkdir -p $CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH/logs
mkdir -p $CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH/sessions
mkdir -p $CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH/tests
chmod -R 777 $CAKEPHP_APP_TMP_PATH

With that, the directories were in place, but they never appear to be used. The app is now properly running with Debug set to 0.

1
votes

It would be ideal if you could get write access to the tmp folder so that you can see the logs.

These Internal Error with Cake are usually related to the caching of the models. So in APC you may have and old cache that does not really match up with your database.

Try clearing the APC cache and see if that helps.

PS: The cake app has a couple of caches, so you'll have to make sure what uses what... you have the default, _cake_core_ and _cake_model_ at least! The last two could be the source of your problems.