php is returning `500 Internal Server Error` instead of error reporting

Question

PHP 7 on Ubuntu server 16 is always returning 500 Internal Server Error without error explanation or reporting when there is any error. I tried to use

ini_set('display_errors', 1);
error_reporting(~0);

but still does not work!

for example I removed ; from a working php file and I got 500 Internal Server Error .

I edited php.ini to include

 display_errors = On
 error_reporting= E_ALL

then restarted Apache without any success

Answer 1

Try

ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
error_reporting(E_ALL);