The log viewer
FatalGuard is also a proper log viewer. Instead of downloading debug.log over
FTP and scrolling through thousands of lines, you read your errors right in
wp-admin — grouped, searchable, and updating live.
What it shows
FatalGuard reads from both sources WordPress and PHP write to:
debug.log— WordPress’s own log (whenWP_DEBUG_LOGis on).- The PHP
error_log— whatever your host writes there.
Entries are classified so you can scan quickly:
- Fatal errors — the ones that take a page down.
- Warnings
- Deprecations — the ones that pile up before a PHP upgrade breaks something.
Grouping and search
Identical errors are grouped into a single row with a count, so one repeating fatal doesn’t bury everything else. Search by message, file, or function to jump straight to what you’re chasing.
Live tail
The viewer updates as new entries arrive, so you can reproduce a bug in one tab and watch it land in another — no page reloads, no re-downloading a file.
Auto file logging
FatalGuard turns on file logging for you, safely, without editing
wp-config.php. You don’t have to hand-set WP_DEBUG constants or risk leaving
debug output on the front end.
Show PHP errors on the front end (local only)
Under General, there’s a Show PHP errors on the front end toggle. This is for local development only — it prints errors into the page so you can see them while building. Never leave it on for a live site; on production, errors belong in the log and the alert, not on the screen in front of visitors.
Free vs Pro
The live viewer shows the current tail of your logs on every plan. Pro adds a searchable error history kept in a database — grouped, with counts and first/last-seen — so you can answer “when did this start?” long after the log file has rotated away.