PhpStorm and xdebug profiler setup on Windows localhost

Question

I'm having a hard time getting xdebug profiling to work and to integrate into PhpStorm 2017. I tried to follow this video without success.

I know that xdebug is properly installed on the web server (a local Apache on Windows installation) and properly integrated into PhpStorm because when I click "Start Listening to PHP Debug connections" in the IDE, my breakpoints stop code execution and I can debug just fine. I just can't get the profiler to generate its files and I don't even know if it's running.

php.ini

<!-- language: lang-none -->
[xdebug]
zend_extension="php_xdebug-2.5.5-5.6-vc11.dll"
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_host=localhost
xdebug.remote_port=9000
xdebug.remote_autostart=1
; xdebug.profiler_enable=1          ; I've tried uncommenting. Made no difference
; xdebug.profiler_enable_trigger=1  ; I've tried uncommenting. Made no difference
xdebug.profiler_output_dir="C:\websites\tmp"
xdebug.profiler_output_name="cachegrind.out.%p"
xdebug.idekey=PHPSTORM

At the start of my PHP execution I've tried to turn on profiling like this:

ini_set('xdebug.profiler_enable','1');

I've also tried running a script from the command line with the following:

php script.php -d xdebug.profiler_enable=1

No error is raised. There is no file created in C:\websites\tmp either.

I've come across the easiest Xdebug extension but I'd rather not rely on another piece of software if it can be avoided (and I haven't even tried it to see whether it would work).

• PHP 5.6
• Apache 2.4
• xdebug 2.5.5
• PhpStorm 2017
• Windows 7 64bit

Update

I learned about the xdebug.remote_log ini directive and set it to a file, then restarted Apache. Here is what I see in the log when I run a normal debugging session (meaning I clicked "Start Listening to PHP Debug connections" in PhpStorm):

<!-- language: lang-none -->
Log opened at 2017-07-22 20:33:03
I: Connecting to configured address/port: localhost:9000.
I: Connected to client. :-)
-> <init xmlns="urn:debugger_protocol_v1" 
         xmlns:xdebug="http://xdebug.org/dbgp/xdebug" 
         fileuri="file:///C:/path/to/script.php"...>
   </init>

As I said, debugging works alright. Now if don't listen for debugging but try to enable profiler with either a command line parameter php script.php -d xdebug.profiler_enable=1 or within the script with ini_set('xdebug.profiler_enable','1'), this is what the xdebug log shows

<!-- language: lang-none -->
Log opened at 2017-07-22 20:38:10
I: Connecting to configured address/port: localhost:9000.
E: Time-out connecting to client. :-(
Log closed at 2017-07-22 20:38:11

Update 2

I was just able to generate the profiler's cachegrind.out file! I don't know the exact constraints to make this work yet, but what I did is uncomment the xdebug.profiler_enable line my php.ini above and restarted Apache. I still need a way to only enable the profiler on demand as in the video I linked to at the top. Having it always on in php.ini adds too much overhead because most of the time I don't need profiler data

Answer 1

This is my working solution:

php.ini

[Xdebug]
zend_extension=php_xdebug-2.6.0-7.2-vc15.dll
xdebug.default_enable=1
xdebug.idekey=PHPSTORM
xdebug.remote_autostart=1
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1
xdebug.remote_port=9000
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp

httpd.conf:

Listen 127.0.0.1:80