Debug Settings in the ColdFusion Administrator

ColdFusion can provide important debugging information for every application page requested by a browser. When you enable debugging, the output displays in a block following normal page output.

For detailed information on the debugging and logging settings in the ColdFusion Administrator, see Advanced ColdFusion Administration.

Note

By default, when you enable any of the debugging and logging options, debug output becomes visible to all users. To restrict debug output to specific IP addresses, use the Debugging IPs page of the ColdFusion Administrator to specify the addresses that can receive debugging messages.

Generating debug information for an individual page

You can view the parameters and CGI environment variables for an individual application page without turning on the global debug settings in the ColdFusion Administrator. Simply append the parameter mode=debug to the end of the URL:

www.myserver.com/cfdocs/test.cfm?mode=debug

Note

If you do not restrict access to debugging information, any browser can use this parameter to get debugging information. To restrict access to specific IP addresses, use the Debugging IPs page of the ColdFusion Administrator to specify the addresses that can receive debugging messages.

Generating debug information for an individual query

You can view debug information for an individual query by putting the debug attribute into the opening cfquery tag:

<cfquery name="TestQuery" datasource="CompanyInfo" debug>

  SELECT * FROM TestTable

</cfquery>

When this query runs, it places the debug information into the output page where the query is placed.

Error messages

If ColdFusion is unable to fulfill a request because of an error, it displays a diagnostic message in the user's browser. The message includes a link that allows the user to e-mail a report of the error to the site administrator. You enable the mail link feature in the Mail Logging page of the ColdFusion Administrator. Errors are written to a log file for later review.

ColdFusion returns the following information:

Database errors, including the ODBC error code, the extended error message returned from the ODBC driver, the name of the data source, and the SQL statement submitted to the database
Syntax error, including the line of the application page file on which the error occurred
System-related errors, such as out of memory conditions, or file or disk access errors

You must select the Display the template path in error messages option on the ColdFusion Administrator Debug Options page to include the path of the page that encounters the problem in each error message.

Tip

If you get a message that does not explicitly identify the cause of the error, check on key system parameters such as available memory and disk space.

For information on using the Logging settings and Mail Logging settings, see Advanced ColdFusion Administration

Developing ColdFusion Applications
Preventing and Handling Errors