composer/doc/articles/troubleshooting.md

<!--
    tagline: Solving problems
-->
# Troubleshooting

This is a list of common pitfalls on using Composer, and how to avoid them.

## General

1. Before asking anyone, run [`composer diagnose`](../03-cli.md#diagnose) to check
   for common problems. If it all checks out, proceed to the next steps.

2. When facing any kind of problems using Composer, be sure to **work with the
   latest version**. See [self-update](../03-cli.md#self-update) for details.

3. Make sure you have no problems with your setup by running the installer's
   checks via `curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --check`.

4. Ensure you're **installing vendors straight from your `composer.json`** via
   `rm -rf vendor && composer update -v` when troubleshooting, excluding any
   possible interferences with existing vendor installations or `composer.lock`
   entries.

5. Try clearing Composer's cache by running `composer clear-cache`.

## Package not found

1. Double-check you **don't have typos** in your `composer.json` or repository
   branches and tag names.

2. Be sure to **set the right
   [minimum-stability](../04-schema.md#minimum-stability)**. To get started or be
   sure this is no issue, set `minimum-stability` to "dev".

3. Packages **not coming from [Packagist](https://packagist.org/)** should
   always be **defined in the root package** (the package depending on all
   vendors).

4. Use the **same vendor and package name** throughout all branches and tags of
   your repository, especially when maintaining a third party fork and using
   `replace`.

5. If you are updating to a recently published version of a package, be aware that
   Packagist has a delay of up to 1 minute before new packages are visible to Composer.

6. If you are updating a single package, it may depend on newer versions itself.
   In this case add the `--with-dependencies` argument **or** add all dependencies which
   need an update to the command.

## Package not found on travis-ci.org

1. Check the ["Package not found"](#package-not-found) item above.

2. If the package tested is a dependency of one of its dependencies (cyclic
   dependency), the problem might be that Composer is not able to detect the version
   of the package properly. If it is a git clone it is generally alright and Composer
   will detect the version of the current branch, but travis does shallow clones so
   that process can fail when testing pull requests and feature branches in general.
   The best solution is to define the version you are on via an environment variable
   called COMPOSER_ROOT_VERSION. You set it to `dev-master` for example to define
   the root package's version as `dev-master`.
   Use: `before_script: COMPOSER_ROOT_VERSION=dev-master composer install` to export
   the variable for the call to composer.

## Package not found in a Jenkins-build

1. Check the ["Package not found"](#package-not-found) item above.
2. Reason for failing is similar to the problem which can occur on travis-ci.org: The
   git-clone / checkout within Jenkins leaves the branch in a "detached HEAD"-state. As
   a result, Composer is not able to identify the version of the current checked out branch
   and may not be able to resolve a cyclic dependency. To solve this problem, you can use
   the "Additional Behaviours" -> "Check out to specific local branch" in your Git-settings
   for your Jenkins-job, where your "local branch" shall be the same branch as you are
   checking out. Using this, the checkout will not be in detached state any more and cyclic
   dependency is recognized correctly.

## I have a dependency which contains a "repositories" definition in its composer.json, but it seems to be ignored.

The [`repositories`](../04-schema.md#repositories) configuration property is defined as [root-only]
(../04-schema.md#root-package). It is not inherited. You can read more about the reasons behind this in the "[why can't
composer load repositories recursively?](../faqs/why-can't-composer-load-repositories-recursively.md)" article.
The simplest work-around to this limitation, is moving or duplicating the `repositories` definition into your root
composer.json.

## I have locked a dependency to a specific commit but get unexpected results.

While Composer supports locking dependencies to a specific commit using the `#commit-ref` syntax, there are certain
caveats that one should take into account. The most important one is [documented](../04-schema.md#package-links), but
frequently overlooked:

> **Note:** While this is convenient at times, it should not be how you use
> packages in the long term because it comes with a technical limitation. The
> composer.json metadata will still be read from the branch name you specify
> before the hash. Because of that in some cases it will not be a practical
> workaround, and you should always try to switch to tagged releases as soon
> as you can.

There is no simple work-around to this limitation. It is therefore strongly recommended that you do not use it.

## Need to override a package version

Let's say your project depends on package A, which in turn depends on a specific
version of package B (say 0.1). But you need a different version of said package B (say 0.11).

You can fix this by aliasing version 0.11 to 0.1:

composer.json:

```json
{
    "require": {
        "A": "0.2",
        "B": "0.11 as 0.1"
    }
}
```

See [aliases](aliases.md) for more information.

## Memory limit errors

If composer shows memory errors on some commands:

`PHP Fatal error:  Allowed memory size of XXXXXX bytes exhausted <...>`

Check first that XDebug is not loaded in your `php.ini` by running
`composer diagnose`. If XDebug is loaded, you should disable it by
commenting the line `zend_extension=path/to/xdebug` in your `php.ini`.
Don't forget to enable XDebug again after using Composer, if you need it.

If composer still raises the error, the PHP `memory_limit` should be increased.

> **Note:** Composer internally increases the `memory_limit` to `1G`.

To get the current `memory_limit` value, run:

```sh
php -r "echo ini_get('memory_limit').PHP_EOL;"
```

Try increasing the limit in your `php.ini` file (ex. `/etc/php5/cli/php.ini` for
Debian-like systems):

```ini
; Use -1 for unlimited or define an explicit value like 2G
memory_limit = -1
```

Or, you can increase the limit with a command-line argument:

```sh
php -d memory_limit=-1 composer.phar <...>
```

## Xdebug impact on Composer

Running Composer console commands while the php extension "xdebug" is loaded reduces speed considerably.
This is even the case when all "xdebug" related features are disabled per php.ini flags,
but the php extension itself is loaded into the PHP engine.
Compared to a cli command run with "xdebug" enabled a speed improvement by a factor of up to 3 is not uncommon.

> **Note:** This is a general issue when running PHP with "xdebug" enabled. You shouldn't
> load the extension in production like environments per se.

Disable "xdebug" in your `php.ini` (ex. `/etc/php5/cli/php.ini` for Debian-like systems) by
locating the related `zend_extension` directive and prepending it with `;` (semicolon):

```sh
;zend_extension = "/path/to/my/xdebug.so"
```

If you disable this extension and still want it to be added on `php` cli command, you can deal with aliases on *nix systems:

```sh
# Load xdebug Zend extension with php command
alias php='php -dzend_extension=xdebug.so'
# PHPUnit needs xdebug for coverage. In this case, just make an alias with php command prefix.
alias phpunit='php $(which phpunit)'
```

With that, all php binaries called directly **will not** have xdebug enabled
but you will still have it by prefixing them with php command.

Example:

```sh
# Will NOT have xdebug enabled
composer update
# Will have xdebug enabled by alias
php /usr/local/bin/composer update
```

If you do not want to disable it and want to get rid of the warning you can also define the
[COMPOSER_DISABLE_XDEBUG_WARN](../03-cli.md#composer-disable-xdebug-warn) environment variable.

## "The system cannot find the path specified" (Windows)

1. Open regedit.
2. Search for an `AutoRun` key inside `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor`,
   `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor`
   or `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Command Processor`.
3. Check if it contains any path to non-existent file, if it's the case, just remove them.

## API rate limit and OAuth tokens

Because of GitHub's rate limits on their API it can happen that Composer prompts
for authentication asking your username and password so it can go ahead with its work.

If you would prefer not to provide your GitHub credentials to Composer you can
manually create a token using the following procedure:

1. [Create](https://github.com/settings/applications) an OAuth token on GitHub.
[Read more](https://github.com/blog/1509-personal-api-tokens) on this.

2. Add it to the configuration running `composer config -g github-oauth.github.com <oauthtoken>`

Now Composer should install/update without asking for authentication.

## proc_open(): fork failed errors
If composer shows proc_open() fork failed on some commands:

`PHP Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'proc_open(): fork failed - Cannot allocate memory' in phar`

This could be happening because the VPS runs out of memory and has no Swap space enabled.

```sh
free -m

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2048 357 1690 0 0 237
-/+ buffers/cache: 119 1928
Swap: 0 0 0
```

To enable the swap you can use for example:

```sh
/bin/dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap.1 bs=1M count=1024
/sbin/mkswap /var/swap.1
/sbin/swapon /var/swap.1
```

## Degraded Mode

Due to some intermittent issues on Travis and other systems, we introduced a
degraded network mode which helps Composer finish successfully but disables
a few optimizations. This is enabled automatically when an issue is first
detected. If you see this issue sporadically you probably don't have to worry
(a slow or overloaded network can also cause those time outs), but if it
appears repeatedly you might want to look at the options below to identify
and resolve it.

If you have been pointed to this page, you want to check a few things:

- If you are using ESET antivirus, go in "Advanced Settings" and disable "HTTP-scanner"
  under "web access protection"
- If you are using IPv6, try disabling it. If that solves your issues, get in touch
  with your ISP or server host, the problem is not at the Packagist level but in the
  routing rules between you and Packagist (i.e. the internet at large). The best way to get
  these fixed is raise awareness to the network engineers that have the power to fix it.

  To disable IPv6 on Linux, try using this command which appends a
  rule preferring IPv4 over IPv6 to your config:

  `sudo sh -c "echo 'precedence ::ffff:0:0/96 100' >> /etc/gai.conf"`
- If none of the above helped, please report the error.