PHP Prevent Fatal Error Output

[jrahma]

Hi,

I had a power failure on the server at night and then users were seeing below message:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'PDOException' with message 'SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Connection timed out' in /home/jassimuser/mybluefile.com/includes/connect2db.php:11 Stack trace: #0 /home/jassimuser/mybluefile.com/includes/connect2db.php(11): PDO->__construct('mysql:host=89.1...', 'root', 'XXXXXXXXX', Array) #1 /home/jassimuser/mybluefile.com/my.php(5): include('/home/jassimuse...') #2 {main} thrown in /home/jassimuser/mybluefile.com/includes/connect2db.php on line 11

How can I prevent this error from shown and show a maintenance page instead?

[laserlight]

You should configure php.ini according to whether you are dealing with a test server or one in production. The copy of php.ini on my local computer has these comments with suggestions:

; display_errors
;   Default Value: On
;   Development Value: On
;   Production Value: Off

; display_startup_errors
;   Default Value: Off
;   Development Value: On
;   Production Value: Off

; error_reporting
;   Default Value: E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_STRICT & ~E_DEPRECATED
;   Development Value: E_ALL
;   Production Value: E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT

; html_errors
;   Default Value: On
;   Development Value: On
;   Production value: On

; log_errors
;   Default Value: Off
;   Development Value: On
;   Production Value: On

In particular, with display_errors set to Off your users will only see a blank page on a fatal error.

[dalecosp]

A few ideas, besides Laserlight's absolutely necessary injunction above:

1. Don't let your DB server get turned off 😛
2. Handle the exception properly:

try { 
       $DB_connect_PDO();  // connect the database
    } catch (Exception $e) { 
       general_error_page(); // oh noes!  Something happened to the DB; show generic page and exit.
       exit;
    }