update_option returns false in AJAX, how to debug?

I found out that my settings where filtered by validation function registered by register_setting. Somehow I thought that it would only affect settings that where going through wordpress’s own settings fields and not a custom AJAX function (the way I have it setup).

To the point of the question: I used php exit to debug the AJAX. update_option returned false because the options fields where the same after validation (I was missing out one particular setting)