Once you have installed your PrestaShop 1.6 store and began working with it, you will inevitably come upon errors from time to time. Although the developers do their best to code error checking and error messages into the code, some errors are not code related. These other errors may be due to server settings or the hosting environment.
Many times the screen may go white or simply something will not look right on the screen. When this happens, the first thing you want to do is to enable the error reporting ability. This allows you to see the specific error messages on the screen. From here, you will either be able to troubleshoot further or give the error message to your friendly InMotion Hosting support team for additional help.
The following instructions are for cPanel hosted accounts. More specifically, they are designed for accounts hosted at InMotion Hosting. While you may use the instructions as a guide, keep in mind they may not be exact if your hosting company is different.
How to enable error reporting in PrestaShop 1.6
- Log into your cPanel admin dashboard.
From here, locate the Files category and click on the File Manager icon.
- Once inside the File Manager, navigate to the root folder for your PrestaShop installation. This is most often the primary domain for the account and you will already be in the public_html folder, which is the correct place. If you have your store installed in a subfolder, such as /store, then locate that folder and double click to enter it. If your store is in an addon domain, locate the folder with that domain name, such as example.com and then enter it.
- Once in the PrestaShop root folder, double click the folder named config and then open the file named defines.inc.php for editing.
- Find the line of code below:
/* Debug only */ define(‘_PS_MODE_DEV_’, false);
- Change the ‘false‘ to ‘true‘ and then click the Save Changes button to save and activate the change. The changed line should read as follows:
/* Debug only */ define(‘_PS_MODE_DEV_’, true);
Now you can return to your site and see if there is an error message at the spot you were having trouble with. Note that there are times when there is no message and further troubleshooting is required. Below is an example of an error that you may see. This is only a sample of many php errors you may run across.
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