Well, yes, it is a workaround for the moment, we probably need to look into why this happens.
But then again, setting the debug settings via the config.php is a quite brutal way of overwriting server settings, anyway. It is only there to make stuff easy for users. The correct way would be via the php.ini.
Edit; Iād still like to know if the reason for this is the same as described in this issue: Panel login - Too many redirects