Silent error when accessing php API has not logged in user

Question

I'm having a strange problem using the CRM API thru PhP (i.e. not REST or AJAX). I'm trying to build a donations counter which tracks the total amount of contributions made under a specific contribution source. Everything works when I'm logged in. But when I'm not, I get a silent php error and my theme breaks. The only thing I can guess is that it might be related to user permissions. So I gave not logged in users the ability to Access CiviCRM and View Contributions. I can confirm this works using the dashboard. But I still cant get the API calls to work without breaking the site.

Things I have tried:

• Adding 'check_permissions' => false to the call
• Surrounding the calls in a try / catch block
• Switching user context in d7 to the root user and then back again.

Maybe it's not even a permissions problem after all..?

CiviCRM version is 4.7 with Drupal 7.

Answer 1

The recommended way to include the necessary files to run the php API is to call civicrm_initialize() before the API call.

Answer 2

If anyone else has this issue, it turns out that the CiviCRM module is not always loaded for not logged in users. Manually including the CRM API file fixed the problem:

    define('DRUPAL_ROOT', '/buildkit/build/CiviCRM');
    define('CIVI_ROOT', DRUPAL_ROOT . '/sites/all/modules/civicrm');
    define('API_PATH', CIVI_ROOT . '/api/api.php');

    /* Bootstrap into the Civi environment */
    require_once API_PATH;
    require_once CIVI_ROOT . '/civicrm.config.php';