Why am I not seeing PHP errors show up in CloudWatch?

[ctessmer]

I'm new to serverless and bref. So excited about the possibilities!

But so far, I'm running blind: I'm not seeing PHP errors/warnings in CloudWatch.

The bref documentation says:

By default, all PHP errors, warnings and notices emitted by PHP will be forwarded into CloudWatch.

But this isn't working for me—or I'm not looking in the right place.

PHP Code

I intentionally put this error in my public/index.php file:

<?php
// force error by referencing undefined expression
xxx_require '../db/connect-to-db.php';

Expected CloudWatch output

Output of an error to an undefined expression xxx_require.

Actual CloudWatch output

Instead, I'm just seeing "stats" of the invocation…

LOGS	Name: dev-mode-extension	State: Subscribed	Types: [platform,function]
[03-Jan-2023 07:28:16] NOTICE: [pool default] 'user' directive is ignored when FPM is not running as root
[03-Jan-2023 07:28:16] NOTICE: fpm is running, pid 20
EXTENSION	Name: dev-mode-extension	State: Ready	Events: [INVOKE,SHUTDOWN]
START RequestId: 54d57917-a607-4ca2-b6c1-e990d3e5e900 Version: $LATEST
[03-Jan-2023 07:28:16] NOTICE: ready to handle connections
[03-Jan-2023 07:28:16] NOTICE: systemd monitor interval set to 10000ms
END RequestId: 54d57917-a607-4ca2-b6c1-e990d3e5e900
REPORT RequestId: 54d57917-a607-4ca2-b6c1-e990d3e5e900	Duration: 78.60 ms	Billed Duration: 679 ms	Memory Size: 1024 MB	Max Memory Used: 92 MB	Init Duration: 600.37 ms	

Again: I'm expecting to see a PHP error lodged in the lines of logs above… somewhere… anywhere.

Am I looking in the wrong place? Doing something wrong? Expecting something wrong?

The Bref logger

I also tried invoking the bref logger [after a composer install] of it via this code in my public/index.php file:

// Invoke and test the bref logger
$logger = new \Bref\Logger\StderrLogger();
$logger->error('This is an error');

But I still don't see This is an error in the logs.

Thanks for reading and any insight you might have. 😊

[afu-dev]

Hello Christian,

I tested the last version of Bref (FPM), and I guessed this is what you used if you are new to Bref.

Here are my files and the output I got in the logs:

# serverless.yml
service: bref-discussions-1371

provider:
  name: aws
  region: eu-west-3 # Paris, France. You might want to change it.
  profile: perso # Note: optional, I handle multiple accounts
  runtime: provided.al2
  timeout: 10
  layers:
    - ${bref:layer.php-82-fpm}


plugins:
  - ./vendor/bref/bref

functions:
  hello:
    handler: hello.php
    events:
      - httpApi: 'GET /hello'
  error:
    handler: error.php
    events:
      - httpApi: 'GET /error'

# Exclude files from deployment
package:
  patterns:
    - '!node_modules/**'
    - '!tests/**'

# hello.php
<?php

use Bref\Logger\StderrLogger;

require "vendor/autoload.php";

$logger = new StderrLogger();

$logger->error("This is an error");
$logger->notice("And a notice"); // won't be written in CloudWatch, default log level = "warning"

# error.php
<?php

require "vendor/autoload.php";

$error =;

{
    "require": {
        "bref/bref": "^1.7",
        "bref/logger": "^1.0"
    }
}

And here's the console output for the logs:

$ sls logs --function hello
[03-Jan-2023 10:18:12] NOTICE: fpm is running, pid 9
[03-Jan-2023 10:18:12] NOTICE: ready to handle connections
START
[ERROR] This is an error
END Duration: 23.17 ms (init: 306.18 ms) Memory Used: 67 MB

$ sls logs --function error
START
[03-Jan-2023 10:18:17] NOTICE: ready to handle connections
NOTICE: PHP message: PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected token ";" in /var/task/error.php on line 5
END Duration: 10.71 ms (init: 295.62 ms) Memory Used: 66 MB

Did you try to look for the logs directly from your CLI? Or did you use the AWS Console? For the latter, you can find the logs in the Log Groups section of CloudWatch:

Or directly inside the Lambda function you deployed:

I hope this can help. If it doesn't, can you share a bit more code with us? Your serverless.yml file, the version of Bref you used, the version of the Serverless Framework you are running, etc. The more, the better 😉

Edit: added two comments in the serverless.yml file.

[ctessmer]

Thank you so much for this thorough answer @afu-dev ! I am running the bref 2 beta. Maybe that's the culprit. I'm going to try your config and see if I can see errors in the logs. Also thanks for introducing me to the sls shorthand for serverless in the command line. Way faster!

[afu-dev]

I haven't try Bref v2 yet, I'll try it right now, be right back!

[mnapoli]

@afu-dev provided awesome details, I just want to point out this specific bit:

EXTENSION	Name: dev-mode-extension	State: Ready	Events: [INVOKE,SHUTDOWN]

That's intriguing 🤔 This isn't something that I've seen before.

Are you trying to use maybe Serverless Console's Dev Mode with Bref? It is possible that whatever extension this is, it disables the logs to CloudWatch entirely.

[ctessmer]

Are you trying to use maybe Serverless Console's Dev Mode with Bref?

Yup. You nailed it!

Honestly I was pretty confused when setting up error handling/logging and thought Serverless was the "right" way to do it. So I enabled that integration on their site, not really knowing there was a different way to do it.

Their logger, though pretty in screenshots, had too many things buried for me, so I abandoned it. But I never deleted the integration.

Now that I have deleted it, this line no longer shows up.

EXTENSION	Name: dev-mode-extension	State: Ready	Events: [INVOKE,SHUTDOWN]

Yay!

However, I'm still not seeing errors in the CloudWatch logs (either in Bref desktop or CloudWatch native). I have yet to walk though @afu-dev 's great and thorough post. I will soon and keep this thread updated.

[afu-dev]

TIL about this feature of Serverless 😅

I'm waiting for your feedback on things you have tried. Feel free to reach out!

[mnapoli]

+1 on checking in CloudWatch directly then. And if nothing shows up there (which might be likely), it might be worth contacting their support.

I know their extension disables the logging to Cloudwatch, so maybe for some reason that is still disabled?

If that is a POC project personally I would remove + recreate from scratch, maybe that's enough 😅

[ctessmer]

I'll definitely start from scratch, replicate @afu-dev 's config, see what happens, and report back.