I love PhpStorm, but even though I've been using it forever, much of it remains a mystery. The latest problem I had was getting it to work with xdebug in the browser (again) after upgrading to version 8. This turned out not to be a PhpStorm issue (see content/phpstorm-and-xdebug-browser-missing-instruction), but the time and effort it took to resolve revealed again that, often, the PhpStorm help file is all but helpful.
Before I succeeded in getting it working with xdebug in the browser, it was working with xdebug within the IDE, debugging a standalone script. Once I got it working in the browser, it would no longer debug a script within the IDE. It would jump to the browser, which would give a Bad Gateway error, and the IDE would give me a popup complaining that php-cgi could not be found.
I'm using Macports on my Mac, and here is what I needed to do in order to get xdebug working for standalone scripts.
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Install cgi for your version of php. I'm using php 5.5. If you're using, for example, php 5.4, change the '55' to '54'.
sudo port install php55 +apache2+fastcgi fcgi php55-cgi
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Restart apache. I do the following in my environment so it doesn't mistakenly use the apache instance that came with OS X
sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl restart
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Create a symlink in /opt/local/bin. Again, change '55' to your version, if not php 5.5.
ln -s php-cgi55
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Make the changes in the PhpStorm preferences
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In the IDE, go to Preferences | PHP and click ... next to your current interpreter
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Click + on the top left of the Interpreters window
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Choose Other Local as the location
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Set the name to PHP-CGI and make sure the path is correct
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