Q:

PHPStorm local debugging with xdebug never catching and can't validate

I can't seem to use xdebug in PHPStorm when running a local server. The server document root is the direct parent of the PHPStorm project root and I can run the project on a web browser and through the "Tools | Test RESTful Web Server" option.
I:

am running my Apache server on a mac (OSX 10.10.5) and used brew to install php 5.5 and xdebug 2.3.3 (which was honestly a huge hassle, as nothing wanted to work). The xdebug shows up properly in my phpinfo() and when I use the terminal command $ php -i so I think it is installed correctly.
have followed several guides, tutorials, and SO questions that either do not pertain to my situation and/or their answers were non-working or absent

Configuring Xdebug (PHPStorm) and may more from the PHPStorm website...
Connection Between PHP and Xdebug (SO) this one was the closest I could find to my situation and it did not resolve my issue either. All the other ones I could find were not very helpful because they were working with the MAMP stack.

can't validate my xdebug with PHPStorm in "Run | Web Server Debug Validation". Everytime I try, no matter how I fiddle with the settings, it is either a connection refused error (which I believe is because I am trying unopened ports) or this:
Web Server Debug Validation returns unexpected format error.

Both the bookmarklets that XDebugger supplies on their website and the browser extensions fail as well.
The weird thing to me is, if I create a virtual host in the apache httpd.conf with the servername as my external IP address and with the same document root, I can access it (not the weird part) but I can also run the debugger perfectly fine through it. This is undesirable as it seems that anyone can now run my code and receive responses with sensitive information. They might also be able to start my debugger, but that would be more of an annoyance if they could.
I have been able to, up until this point, work without a debugger, but there have been instances where it would have been great to have one. Looking toward the future I can say for certain that having a debugger will help immensely with my projects, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
I would also prefer not to reinstall everything as it was a huge pain to set it all up in the first place, but if it's a last resort I may have to.
I can provide more information if needed.
Thanks,
Jacob

A:

I managed to get the step debugging to work with a couple changes:

For the validation test, instead of just localhost I attempted to validate a sub-folder that contains my code for the project. The PHPStorm project itself was set to this folder. I think that because my document root was outside of the project that it refused to validate the xdebug extension.
I also configured my DBGp Proxy under Tools to accept the IDE key that xdebug had set as default and updated the IDE key in the xdebug bookmarks.

I can now step debug with Run > Start Listening for PHP Debug Connections and in-browser using the XDebug Debugger bookmarks.
Jacob

