a Chunk

Invision Community 4.7.2 now features a third party application and plug-ins PHP 8 compatibility scanner.
Please read this post as you may find applications of plugins disabled after upgrading.
Why do we need this?
The underlying programming language that Invision Community uses is PHP. The latest version, PHP 8 was released in November 2020 and features many breaking changes and incompatibilities that are not backwards compatible. Some of these changes mean that what was a harmless silent notice, is now a fatal error which would mean that if you upgrade with incompatible code, your community would throw a fatal error which results in either a white screen, or a server level error message in your browser.
These fatal errors cannot be captured by Invision Community and managed. The fatal errors are deeper in the execution chain.
PHP 8 has been out for close to two years, and PHP 7.4 is 'end of life' and security updates will cease from November which means that it becomes insecure, so everyone will have to move to PHP 8 very shortly.
What is it
The compatibility checker examines all third party applications and plugins that you have added from the Marketplace.
We encourage our Marketplace authors to test with PHP 8 but not all do, and as such applications and plugins that work fine with PHP 7.4 will fail with PHP 8.
The compatibility checker scans all third party code for issues that could cause fatal errors, and if it finds them it will disable the application or plugin on upgrade.
The only way to re-enable the application or upgrade is to update it to a 4.7.2 compatible version from the marketplace.
Can I re-enable disabled third party plugins and applications?
Yes, if you are confident the plugins and applications are fine to run with your current PHP version then you can re-enable them until our November release which will then enforce the disabling of applications.

It's worth reaching out to the authors of key plugins and applications to see if they have a PHP8 compatible version available, or plan to have one by November so you can prepare for the November upgrade.
Is this really needed?
Unfortunately yes. PHP are making bold changes that are not backwards compatible. Invision Community is fortunate to have so many third party developers releasing apps and plugins to further enhance the feature-set, but we do not have direct control over this code. Our priority is to ensure that your site upgrades smoothly and remains online.
Why now?
We finally ran out of road. We have been working towards PHP 8 compatibility for a while, and we have encouraged our third party authors to do so too, and to test with PHP 8. We also informed the developers in August about the scanner and what it may do to their applications. We also have been releasing Invision Community 4.7 betas since May of this year to give them as much time as possible to update their applications. Enforcing this change is painful in the short term but benefits everyone in the longer term.
What else can I do?
Your self-hosting license allows you a test install which you should use as a staging site and test any upgrades on that staging site before performing the upgrade on your production site. This will enable you to capture any issues that may arise before you run it on your production site.

As always, we recommend that a back-up snapshot is taken before any upgrade so that you can easily rollback if you encounter any issues.
I'm using PHP 7, does this affect me?
Yes, the compatibility scanner will still run on the upgrade and check for PHP 8 issues so that when you do upgrade to PHP 8 you won't find that your community is no longer working.

Thanks for reading!

4.7.2 onwards does check the status with the Marketplace as detailed here: 
 
We however don't know whether an app/plugin needs disabling until the new core files are present on your system. They're used for real-time comparisons and tests to determine if there's going to be a fatal error.
The app scanner isn't a requirement for developers to be able to test their code and ensure it works with PHP 8.1, they'll see the fatal errors occur when testing.

Why? F'me if i'm wrong but there is a clear warning in front of the upgrade which you have to acknowledge with a slider!
But well I can feel the pain of @Davyc and others but if you're running a big site then why the heck don't you have a test environment? It takes a few minutes to migrate to a playground and test the upgrade and plugins there!
I made the upgrade in test a few minutes ago and i know that we can#t upgrade yet! 2 Themes and 3 Plugins get blocked, now i can wait for the devs in piece and silence 😉
 
Chris
 

Yes, because you can upgrade to PHP 8 after the upgrade and then have a bricked install. Given that PHP 7 is EOL and security support ends in November this year, I'd suspect most hosts will start planning their upgrades to PHP 8 very soon.


As mentioned above, PHP 8 have made things that used to send a hidden notice now throw a fatal error we cannot capture or adjust.

A pre-upgrade check wouldn't solve much as once you have the files up there, you either proceed, or you restore a back-up which is not a great choice either.

We are going to be working through the marketplace queue to ensure we can get as many apps as possible through the approval process.
 

That is the issue @Matt these apps 'are' 4.7 compatible and they are in the marketplace.  I've received a reply from the author who has provided replacement files and the support page now shows no errors at all, but the app is still locked.
 
 
 

Yes, it's quite frustrating but the PHP 8 upgrade is very destructive and what were harmless notices are now fatal errors.

We had to add quite robust checking and even disabling applications to prevent bricked upgrades. It's taken us a few revisions to get it completely accurate.

Hi @Matt 
I found out apps/plugins work on 4.7.1 but not on 4.7.2.
Regards,

I've contacted the author, but my issue is not with something that needs to be corrected, rather it is that this information was provided 'after the upgrade' had that warning appeared prior then I would have contacted the author and waited for a solution before updating.  I'm now at the mercy of the app provided to discover the issue, correct it/them and provide and update to the marketplace where it will be queued for approval.  
I'm wondering how many apps will fall under this lock out as the apps are still available in the marketplace and they can still be installed from the ACP.  There should have been a warning prior to upgrade to prevent clients sites from being rendered inoperable.

I'm curious to know why information regarding certain plugins was not checked before the upgrade began.  I have two applications that have now been 'locked' because of some PHP 8 incompatibilities.  My site is now completely crippled because the app that is locked is the mainstay of the site.  As it stands my site is now useless.  Had the below warning appeared prior to upgrade I would not have proceeded.

When a member removes authentication on Discord side, the application still has got a limited control over him. The only things it can’t do when he does it are profile photo synchronization, email address synchronization and the Force Join button disappears from ACP.
The same applies here. Moreover, for some reason Invision Community doesn’t show unlink button after they do it. They need to reauthenticate first...
When their forum account is deleted, they are kicked too.

Edit the notification in ACP and switch Notification type to Late Notification.
Instant Notification is left as default notification type to not confuse clients that were using the app before this option was added.
Let us know if it doesn’t resolve your problem. 
Try to disable and enable the application again.  It looks like something went wrong during installation. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I can confirm that this is possible.  You'll create a Points Mystery Box (you can name it whatever you want).
Here are the settings options:

 
You would set the Price to 0 (assuming you want it to be free.  You can set the minimum and maximum quantity of points that can be won.  You can set the win percentage (I assume you'd want to use the 'Everyones a winner baby' option.  And you can set the 'Purchase Time Delay' at 86400, which is how many seconds there are in one day.

I can confirm that this is possible.  You'll create a Points Mystery Box (you can name it whatever you want).
Here are the settings options:

 
You would set the Price to 0 (assuming you want it to be free.  You can set the minimum and maximum quantity of points that can be won.  You can set the win percentage (I assume you'd want to use the 'Everyones a winner baby' option.  And you can set the 'Purchase Time Delay' at 86400, which is how many seconds there are in one day.

@a Chunk Need to think about it

Hello,
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