Timber is a general-purpose error-logging and alert system for Wordpress. It traps and catalogues PHP errors at multiple levels, and provides detailed stack trace and debug information. It integrates with the Role Manager plugin to allow user & role specific permissions to be set to view and/or clear errors.

Timber is intended primarily as a developer’s tool, to be enabled in a sandbox environment while debugging plugins or themes in-progress. However, it also has potential in a production setting, as a way to hide errors from the end-user while still logging them for administrator review. The configuration settings allow for precise control of what type of errors and what error information is logged, so it can be deployed in varying scenarios without runaway logs filling the database.

Several additional features are planned, and a good deal of real-world testing is still required. Timber is currently in beta.

Before proceeding with configuration, perform a standard plugin installation and activate Timber. If you’ve never installed a Wordpress plugin before, follow our step-by-step guide.

Once active, Timber adds an option panel to the sidebar menu. Under ‘Settings’, locate and click the ‘Timber’ menu item. This will bring you to the ‘Timber Settings’ configuration screen. Several options control the type of errors and error data that will be logged.

Behavior

These settings control general options for how errors are logged and handled. Enabling stack trace and/or variable contents logging will provide much greater debug information to assist in tracking down the source of an error, but will also consume much more space in the database. The ’suppress error messages’ option will hide the default message PHP generates from ever being seen by a site visitor. Pass-through is a useful debugging tool that skips the Suppress, Die On, and Custom Error Message options — it simply logs the error and then reverts back to PHP’s default error handler. And the ‘view per page’ option controls the display of the errors list in the admin panel, under the ‘Errors’ menu item on the sidebar.

Log Error Types

This setting controls which PHP error types should be logged. The full meaning of each type is described in the PHP documentation on error constants. Check which types you would like logged, and the unchecked types will be ignored. It is not recommended to log errors of type E_NOTICE or E_STRICT in a production environment, as they may fill the database very quickly.

Die On Error Types

This setting controls which PHP error types should stop execution of the page. If an error occurs that is not selected, the page will attempt to resume after the line that caused the error. In some cases this will not be possible and execution will stop regardless. In some cases, this will result in a large number of subsequent errors that are caused by the first failure (e.g., a variable may not be set in the first line, that later lines depend on to function correctly).

Custom Error Message

This setting allows you to specify a custom error message to display to the user in the event of a fatal error. This allows you to let your visitors know that a drastic, unexpected problem has been encountered, without displaying the actual code error, which may be confusing or a potential security flaw.

Once these options have been configured, Timber is fully operational. Click on the ‘Errors’ menu option in the left sidebar to see if any errors have already been trapped.

Is Timber safe to install on my public blog?

Maybe. There are several things that could wreak havoc when installing Timber on a live Wordpress site, and it’s important to understand what they are. As a start, follow these two steps:
1) Don’t log Notices or Strict messages.
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Does Timber log non-PHP Wordpress errors?

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Why is Wordpress 2.7 required?

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