Stuck up with the Joomla error log too big problem?

Generally, the Joomla error log fills up when there are faulty plugins or misconfiguration on the website.

At Bobcares, we often receive requests to fix Joomla errors as a part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s discuss the error log in Joomla and see how our Support Engineers fix the trouble caused by this big error log.

About error log file in Joomla

Let’s begin by discussing what this error log file is and for what it is used.

Joomla websites normally have the error logs files in root directory like public_html.

This error log file contains all the errors that happen on the website. However, it stores only those errors which are visible by users. This includes errors like fatal error and other error codes of Joomla. But, errors relating to the Apache modules or extensions are stored here in this file.

This file is helpful as it provides the details of the error that is present on the website. Using this error log we can troubleshoot the website problem and fix it easily. Also, it helps know about any malicious attack on the website.

How we fix Joomla error log too big problem?

As discussed above the error log stores all the errors from the website.

Sometimes, for some websites this file size grows rapidly. This happens if there is any error continuously occurring on the website. The overgrowing of the log file itself indicates a problem with the website.

Recently, one of our customers approached us with the problem Joomla error log taking more space in the account. And the customer was willing to disable this error log on the website.

Let’s see how our Support Engineers fix this problem.

1. Disable faulty plugin

Most often, the reason for the larger Joomla log file will be a faulty plugin.

Our Support Engineers started troubleshooting this error by checking if there is any ‘System log’ plugin enabled on the website. Again, we examined the log files to find the faulty plugin. Usually, plugin misconfiguration generates too many log entries. Asa a result, it will be really easy to isolate the plugin.

Unfortunately, in this case, we could not find such plugins set on the website.

2. Check the configuration settings

We further continued troubleshooting the error by checking the Global Configuration settings, under the System tab. Here we can change the path of the logs folder and see if that stops generating errors.

The log file location detains of the Joomla website show up as :

3. Fixing the errors from the error log

Many times disabling the error log may not be an option. This is because disabling logs will make the website debugging tougher. In such cases, the best option is to fix the errors on the Joomla website.

So, we went checking for what error was being logged in the error log file. We could see that there were some errors relating to PHP. And this file was created by /usr/local/lib/php.ini. On research, we found that one of the website plugins was not working well with the new PHP version.

So, we set the value off for log_error in the php.ini file temporarily. This stopped logging errors.

Finally, we contacted the plugin developer for a fix and reenabled it.

[Need any assistance to fix Joomla errors? – We’ll help you]

Conclusion

In short, the Joomla error log helps in easily resolving the website errors. But faulty plugins or misconfigurations can make Joomla error log too big. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers fix this trouble with increasing error log size.