I'm getting the error on the 'login' part of the upgrade process


 

  Quote

We were unable to start a PHP session. You will need to contact your host to adjust your PHP configuration before you can continue. The error reported was: Return type of IPS\_DateTime::format($format, $memberOrLanguage = null) should either be compatible with DateTime::format(string $format): string, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice

 

I'm not sure this is a 'host' issue as much as it is an issue with the code...

I can fix the issue if someone will tell me what the error actually means.

Hi, I'll give it a shot.

PHP 8.1

Going from 4.7.6 -> lastest

Yes, its PHP 8.1

PHP Version 8.1.27

 

 

This error indicates a php version incompatibility. It can come from one of third party apps. 

#[\ReturnTypeWillChange] is a new attribute introduced in PHP 8.1, which signals that a mismatching tentative return type should not emit a deprecation notice.

PHP versions prior to 8.0 parses the attribute syntax as a code comment, and does not cause any syntax errors. Adding #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute to a class method does not cause any issues, but omits the deprecation notice in PHP 8.1.

If the overwrite of the files will not fix the error, can you try to disable all third party stuff that you might have instaleld and give the upgrader another go?

Unfortunately, reuploading the files did not work. I dont really have third party plugins installed, I have disabled the chatbox I had and I *think* I've restored the default theme. Still seeing the same issue.
 

I downloaded, unzipped them and used filezilla to upload the contents over sftp, setting the default action to overwrite. I tried again with no result. 

I'm not sure that it makes sense that MyISAM would be causing an issue where a PHP session cannot be created.. Also, this issue happened immediately after uploading the Invision Community files - it hasnt reached the DB part yet. If there was an issue with one of the plugins, I would have seen it when I upgraded to PHP8.1.

 

Nevertheless, I have converted the remaining tables from MyISAM over to InnoDB and I'm still seeing the same issue.

Hi Jim,

No, not for this upgrade. When I did the previous upgrade I think I was running php7.4 which was no longer supported, so it failed the system check part of the upgrade. I upgraded to php8.1 and did the upgrade without an issue. The community has been running fine on php8.1. 

Its only this recent upgrade which has caused the issue. 

Edited January 15, 20241 yr by Scott Allen

I checked the status of the db and ran a mysqlcheck, but the tables are all coming back as "OK". Again, it doesnt necessarily make sense to me that this is a database issue? 

Well, thats embarrassing. Its owned by apache and not nginx. I just read that upgrading php sometimes resets that folder back to root:apache.

Where did you see that error, though? I hunted all over for a php error message and I couldn't find anything? 

It wasnt visable for me. I even enabled set 'display_errors' = on and still saw nothing. I only saw an error when I restarted the DB. 

Maybe I should have used another browser. 

Sorry, yes. I was just showing you the screenshot from before to show that I didnt see any PHP error.

The forums are working fine. 

Glad to hear everything is working now 🙂