PHP upgrade - v7.4 to v8.0 - server 500 error

[SingaporeBikes.com]

We are running bikes forum in Singapore and use invision software. we are on the latest release and asking us to update php from version 7.4.30 to version 8.0.0.

 

So we tried to upgrade it using Cpanel under multi php manager. We update that to version 8.0 and now the forum not reachable and giving a 500 error. 

I reviewed few different topics on this in this forum and tried the suggested approaches.

 

I tried disabling the market place applications, I dont have any extra plugins and themes as well. What could be the issue?

 

Market place applications disabled to test this out and no luck.

 

 

We tried upgrading to 8.1 as well but no luck, what are we missing is there any issue at all upgrading to 8.0 for most of the folks ?

 

Site is showing as below after upgrade to 8.0/8.1 hence we reverted back to 7.4 version again.

Edited August 1, 2022 by SingaporeBikes.com

[Jim M]

While on PHP 8.0 or 8.1, please use the following requirements checker to ensure that your PHP has all required modules: 

 

Additionally, I noticed you only showed a screenshot of your third party applications. If you are using any third party plugins or custom themes, please disable those and switch to an unmodified theme.

[SingaporeBikes.com]

@Jim MThanks for the guidance. Could you provide some details on how to use the attached requirements checker? Like where to upload and how to run that?

 

We do not have any additional plugins:

 

We are using a customized theme:

We will evaluate on to disable and test. May I know any recommended themes that we can choose from?

Best Regards,
SBF Admin

[teraßyte]

Upload the file to your forum's root (where the conf_global.php file is located) and then access it from your browser using this url:

https://www.singaporebikes.com/ips4.php

 

[SingaporeBikes.com]

Thanks, here the requirements checker output. It shows all green.

[Marc]

You need to test this while on the version of PHP that is breaking. You are on 7.4 there

[SingaporeBikes.com]

If the site is down, how can we check the above. Do you think the URL "https://www.singaporebikes.com/ips4.php" will still works when the PHP broken when its upgraded to 8.0 ?

[Marc]

2 hours ago, SingaporeBikes.com said:

If the site is down, how can we check the above. Do you think the URL "https://www.singaporebikes.com/ips4.php" will still works when the PHP broken when its upgraded to 8.0 ?

Yes. Its purpose is that you can run it and see what is compatible. So its designed to do just that

[SingaporeBikes.com]

I am able to get the results after applying php 8.0 and its failing due to below reasons.

=========

1. You do not have the cURL PHP extension loaded (or it is running a version less than 7.36) and the allow_url_fopen PHP setting is disabled. You should contact your hosting provider or system administrator to ask either for cURL version 7.36 or greater to be installed, to be installed or the allow_url_fopen setting enabled. cURL is recommended.

2. You do not have the GD PHP extension loaded which is required. You should contact your hosting provider or system administrator to ask for it to be enabled.

3. You do not have the Multibyte String PHP extension loaded which is required. You should contact your hosting provider or system administrator to ask for it to be installed.

4. You do not have the MySQLi PHP extension loaded which is required. You should contact your hosting provider or system administrator to ask for it to be installed.

5. Your PHP memory limit is too low. It needs to be set to 128M or more. You should contact your hosting provider or system administrator to ask for this to be changed.

=========

 

[Mark H]

Those 5 items must be fixed by your Host, in either the server-wide php.ini file, or in an account-specific php.ini file as an override in your server account. They may need to recompile PHP to add some missing Extensions.

Once that has been done, reload that page and check to see if the red items are now green.

[commandosqueak1]

I have recently had this issue. Try installing and upgrading to 8.1 works so much better.

 

[LiquidFractal]

I recently upgraded to 4.7 and 8.0.x on my business site, and everything is running fine.

However, I tried it first on my test site by first upgrading to 4.7, then disabling all customisations, then upgrading to 8.0 and re-enabling things bit by bit and reloading the site - which helped me discover one or two apps/plugins which broke the upgraded test site so I could delete them on my production site.

I tried 8.1 and it was working for a while but I now have to reinstall my test site as there are strange problems with trying to access the PHP *.sock file (I think switching FPM packages too often does this?).  Anyway, that's probably a general procedure to follow when making such important site updates.

On 8/2/2022 at 2:29 AM, Jim M said:

While on PHP 8.0 or 8.1, please use the following requirements checker to ensure that your PHP has all required modules: 

Strangely, I ran this on my newly-wiped-clean test install site and while everything's in the green, the PHP script seems to omit everything below server requirements:

Just FYI: perhaps this is due to PHP 8.1.8?

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by LiquidFractal

[Marc]

11 hours ago, LiquidFractal said:

I recently upgraded to 4.7 and 8.0.x on my business site, and everything is running fine.

However, I tried it first on my test site by first upgrading to 4.7, then disabling all customisations, then upgrading to 8.0 and re-enabling things bit by bit and reloading the site - which helped me discover one or two apps/plugins which broke the upgraded test site so I could delete them on my production site.

I tried 8.1 and it was working for a while but I now have to reinstall my test site as there are strange problems with trying to access the PHP *.sock file (I think switching FPM packages too often does this?).  Anyway, that's probably a general procedure to follow when making such important site updates.

Strangely, I ran this on my newly-wiped-clean test install site and while everything's in the green, the PHP script seems to omit everything below server requirements:

Just FYI: perhaps this is due to PHP 8.1.8?

 

Thank you for reporting. I will take a look at this to see if I can replicate

[LiquidFractal]

8 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Thank you for reporting. I will take a look at this to see if I can replicate

Upon further examination, I think I can save you some time. 🙂

I think this happens when ips4.php is run on a site which does not yet have a mySQL database configured.  I'm using DirectAdmin, and I notice that once you create a first DB, only then does phpMyAdmin become available as a clickable button, so I think this has to be set up for mySQL to register with the ips4.php script.

To this end, I ran the script on my production site (which obviously has all this set up) and everything displays fine.

Hope this helps!

[Marc]

That would explain why I couldnt replicate it. Thank you for letting us know 🙂 In reality, that is a very very niche scenario there and not something I would really see as being a bug. For example, if you didnt have PHP installed, the file wouldnt run at all 🙂 

[SingaporeBikes.com]

We are able to sucessfully upgrade after we installed above extensions listed for php8.0 and php8.1

 

Now site is working on both php8.0 and php8.1, but we are on php8.0

 

What is recommended from invision community side whether 8.0 is stable or 8.1 is more stable.

[teraßyte]

I've seen a few issues around with 8.1. I think using 8.0 is better for now.

[LiquidFractal]

5 hours ago, teraßyte said:

I've seen a few issues around with 8.1. I think using 8.0 is better for now.

I backed up my production site and tried upgrading it to 4.7.1 and PHP 8.1.9.  Everything's been running smoothly on my end so far.

[Marc]

On 8/13/2022 at 7:26 PM, SingaporeBikes.com said:

We are able to sucessfully upgrade after we installed above extensions listed for php8.0 and php8.1

 

Now site is working on both php8.0 and php8.1, but we are on php8.0

 

What is recommended from invision community side whether 8.0 is stable or 8.1 is more stable.

We support both. There are some known issues with PHP  8 and calendar at present due to a PHP bug, but other than that both appear to work fine. You will of course also need to check with your 3rd party items for compatibility too. This is often what people overlook.