mac: xdebug terminates without any good explaination

[olabri]

Cannot get xdebug to work for mac. Not sure what the problem is as log is non-descriptive. I noticed that using debug.json instead of vscode settings connects to a random port. Not sure if that is the core problem as vscode settings results in same error.

Trying in ddev container and local script results in same error as well.

debug.json:

[
  {
    "name": "DDEV Listen for Xdebug",
    "label": "PHP: Listen to Xdebug",
    "adapter": "Xdebug",
    "request": "launch",
    "hostname": "0.0.0.0",
    "port": 9003,
    "pathMappings": {
         "/var/www/html": "$ZED_WORKTREE_ROOT"
       },
  },
]

running results in:

2026-05-15T09:08:19+02:00 INFO  [dap::transport] Debug adapter has connected to TCP server 127.0.0.1:57669
2026-05-15T09:08:19+02:00 ERROR [debugger_ui::debugger_panel]                                                                                                                                                                         
error: process exited before debugger attached.   

using the working vscode config gives this (mark this connects to correct port):

2026-05-15T09:10:37+02:00 INFO  [dap::transport] Debug adapter has connected to TCP server 127.0.0.1:9003
2026-05-15T09:10:37+02:00 ERROR [debugger_ui::debugger_panel]
error: process exited before debugger attached.

(dev: copy debug adapter arguments)

dev: open debug adapter logs: