Smarty can catch many errors such as missing tag attributes or malformed variable names. If this happens, you will see an error similar to the following: Smarty shows you the template name, the line number and the error. After that, the error consists of the actual line number in the Smarty class that the error occured. There are certain errors that Smarty cannot catch, such as missing close tags. These types of errors usually end up in PHP compile-time parsing errors. When you encounter a PHP parsing error, the error line number will correspond to the compiled PHP script, not the template itself. Usually you can look at the template and spot the syntax error. Here are some common things to look for: missing close tags for {if}{/if} or {section}{/section}, or syntax of logic within an {if} tag. If you can't find the error, you might have to open the compiled PHP file and go to the line number to figure out where the corresponding error is in the template. The $template_dir is incorrect, doesn't exist or the file index.tpl is not in the templates/ directory A {config_load} function is within a template (or config_load() has been called) and either $config_dir is incorrent , does not exist or site.conf is not in the directory. Either the $compile_dir is incorrectly set, the directory does not exist, or templates_c is a file and not a directory. The $compile_dir is not writable by the web server. See the bottom of the installing smarty page for permissions. This means that $caching is enabled and either; the $cache_dir is incorrectly set, the directory does not exist, or cache is a file and not a directory. This means that $caching is enabled and the $cache_dir is not writable by the web server. See the bottom of the installing smarty page for permissions. See also debugging, $error_reporting and trigger_error().