When PHP Fatal error happens, Nginx reports HTTP Error 500 to browser

Question

My server is setup with Nginx + PHP + FastCGI. Whenever PHP throws a Fatal error, it gets logged inside of nginx/error.log, but the server reports HTTP Error 500 back to the browser instead of displaying the PHP Fatal error to the browser as is desired and typical in other setups. I've been searching for how to resolve this and keep coming up short. Anyone have anything helpful about this? Much appreciated!

Answer 1

Found it!

As of PHP 5.2.4, the default is now to cause a 500 error, because the alternative is an empty page.

Other discussions suggest that this behavior can not be changed for the "PHP Fatal" error type, which don't flow through the normal error handler routines and can not be caught or stopped.

Answer 2

You probably have php_errors off (or the displaying of them) in your php loader script... Try checking your php.ini settings...