3.9 Site down after changing to PHP 7.0.32 Topic is solved

[mike_r]

After changing PHP version from 5.6 to 7.0.32 (the most recent version available from the hosting service) through cPanel on a recently upgraded 3.9 site, the site becomes inaccessible. Both the frontend and the administration backend pages are blank with no error messages. Apparently a db connection issue? If the PHP version is returned to version 5.6 everything works normally.

An older site (Joomla version 3.6) on the same server controlled by the same PHP settings works fine. This site was an old development site that uses the same template and extensions as the 3.9 version.

Any ideas on what might be the issue?

[annahersh]

Set error reporting to maximum in the global settings and enable debug then check to see if there are error messages. If your host allows php 7.2, use that version.

[imanickam]

The sites I maintain are using PHP 7.0.32 and have not encountered any errors of this kind. All the sites are running fine.

As annahersh specifies, setting the Error Reporting maximum would give some clue as to where things fail.

[mike_r]

Thanks annahersh, error reporting had been set to maximum and debugging enabled - but no error messages.

Unfortunately the host is not yet able to offer php 7.2.

It it is curious that the older site works fine.

[JAVesey]

When problems off this type are reported it is always a 3rd-party extension (component, module, plugin or template) that is incompatible with the PHP version in use. It is never Joomla's core issue.

Make sure that all your extensions are updated, including those (and there are still many) that do no not use the update notification system in /administrator.

[mike_r]

Thanks John, but all extensions have been updated and are identical to the ones used on the development site that works fine with php 7.0.32. The only difference being that the working site hasn't had Joomla updated and is currently on version 3.6.0

[pmleconte]

Hi,

You've updated all your extensions : ok, but, are they Joomla 3.9 compatible ?

To help us help you : viewtopic.php?f=714&t=793531

Pascal

[mike_r]

Thanks Pascal, yes I'm sure all extensions are 3.9 compatible. The site runs fine with 3.9 and php 5.6 (no errors), but when php is switched to 7.0.32 Joomla doesn't start at all - including the administrator backend. Switch back to php 5.6 and then all is well.

On the separate original development site running on the same server and php settings with the same templates and extensions, but running 3.6.5 and php 7.0.32 everything works fine. So it seems everything is compatible with 3.9 and 7.0.32 except when they are running concurrently. To test this further I upgraded the 3.6.5 site to 3.9 and sure enough it doesn't work when switched to php 7.0.32.

[toivo]

As requested by @pmleconte, please post the results from the Forum Post Assistant (FPA), which may offer clues to why the combination of some third party extension(s) and your template fails in Joomla 3.9.0 and PHP 7.

[mike_r]

FPA results as requested:

Joomla! Instance :: Joomla! 3.9.0-Stable (Amani) 30-October-2018
Joomla! Platform :: Joomla Platform 13.1.0-Stable (Curiosity) 24-Apr-2013
Joomla! Configured :: Yes | Read-Only (444) | Owner: --protected-- . (uid: 1/gid: 1) | Group: --protected-- (gid: 1) | Valid For: 3.9
Configuration Options :: Offline: false | SEF: true | SEF Suffix: false | SEF ReWrite: false | .htaccess/web.config: Yes | GZip: false | Cache: false | CacheTime: 15 | CacheHandler: file | CachePlatformPrefix: false | FTP Layer: false | Proxy: false | LiveSite: | Session lifetime: 122 | Session handler: database | Shared sessions: false | SSL: 0 | Error Reporting: maximum | Site Debug: false | Language Debug: false | Default Access: 1 | Unicode Slugs: false | dbConnection Type: mysqli | PHP Supports J! 3.9.0: Yes | Database Credentials Present: Yes |

Host Configuration :: OS: Linux | OS Version: 2.6.32-673.26.1.lve1.4.15.el6.x86_64 | Technology: x86_64 | Web Server: Apache/2.2.31 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.31 OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips mod_bwlimited/1.4 | Encoding: gzip, deflate, br | Doc Root: --protected-- | System TMP Writable: Yes | Free Disk Space : 141.55 GiB |

PHP Configuration :: Version: 7.0.32 | PHP API: cgi-fcgi | Session Path Writable: Yes | Display Errors: 1 | Error Reporting: 32767 | Log Errors To: | Last Known Error: | Register Globals: | Magic Quotes: | Safe Mode: | Open Base: | Uploads: 1 | Max. Upload Size: 64M | Max. POST Size: 128M | Max. Input Time: -1 | Max. Execution Time: 30 | Memory Limit: 256M

Database Configuration :: Version: 5.5.61-cll (Client:5.5.61) | Host: --protected-- (--protected--) | Localhost: Yes | Collation: utf8_general_ci (Character Set: utf8) | Database Size: 12.47 MiB | #of Tables: 115

PHP Extensions :: Core (7.0.32) | date (7.0.32) | libxml (7.0.32) | openssl (7.0.32) | pcre (7.0.32) | sqlite3 (7.0.32) | zlib (7.0.32) | bz2 (7.0.32) | calendar (7.0.32) | ctype (7.0.32) | curl (7.0.32) | hash (1.0) | filter (7.0.32) | ftp (7.0.32) | gettext (7.0.32) | gmp (7.0.32) | SPL (7.0.32) | iconv (7.0.32) | pcntl (7.0.32) | readline (7.0.32) | Reflection (7.0.32) | session (7.0.32) | standard (7.0.32) | shmop (7.0.32) | SimpleXML (7.0.32) | mbstring (7.0.32) | tokenizer (7.0.32) | xml (7.0.32) | cgi-fcgi () | bcmath (7.0.32) | posix (7.0.32) | imap (7.0.32) | tidy (7.0.32) | pspell (7.0.32) | dom (20031129) | json (1.4.0) | PDO (7.0.32) | soap (7.0.32) | wddx (7.0.32) | sockets (7.0.32) | gd (7.0.32) | xmlreader (7.0.32) | pdo_mysql (7.0.32) | xmlrpc (7.0.32) | exif (7.0.32) | xmlwriter (7.0.32) | mcrypt (7.0.32) | xsl (7.0.32) | pdo_sqlite (7.0.32) | suhosin7 (0.10.0dev) | mysqli (7.0.32) | zip (1.13.5) | mysqlnd (mysqlnd 5.0.12-dev - 20150407 - $Id: b5c5906d452ec590732a93b051f3827e02749b83 $) | ionCube Loader () | Zend Engine (3.0.0) |
Potential Missing Extensions ::

Switch User Environment (Experimental) :: PHP CGI: Yes | Server SU: Yes | PHP SU: Yes | Custom SU (LiteSpeed/Cloud/Grid): Yes
Potential Ownership Issues: No

Core Folders :: images/ (755) | components/ (755) | modules/ (755) | plugins/ (755) | language/ (755) | templates/ (755) | cache/ (755) | logs/ (755) | tmp/ (755) | administrator/components/ (755) | administrator/modules/ (755) | administrator/language/ (755) | administrator/templates/ (755) | administrator/logs/ (755) |

Elevated Permissions (First 10) :: zzznew/images/stories/ (777) |

Database statistics :: Uptime: 3472020 | Threads: 3 | Questions: 126707815 | Slow queries: 2229 | Opens: 1200198 | Flush tables: 1 | Open tables: 400 | Queries per second avg: 36.493 |

Components :: SITE ::
Core :: com_wrapper (3.0.0) 1 | com_mailto (3.0.0) 1 |
3rd Party:: WF_SEARCHREPLACE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_LAYER_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_VISUALCHARS_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_TEXTCASE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_IMGMANAGER_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_HR_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_FORMATSELECT_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_FONTCOLOR_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_STYLE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_PREVIEW_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_BROWSER_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_VISUALBLOCKS_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_LISTS_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_FONTSIZESELECT_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_LINK_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_FULLSCREEN_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_XHTMLXTRAS_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_STYLESELECT_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_AUTOSAVE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_MEDIA_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_SPELLCHECKER_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_INLINEPOPUPS_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_SOURCE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_KITCHENSINK_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_NONBREAKING_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_CLEANUP_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_ANCHOR_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_CONTEXTMENU_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_PRINT_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_EMOTIONS_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_CHARMAP_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_CLIPBOARD_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_ARTICLE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_TABLE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_DIRECTIONALITY_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_FONTSELECT_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_AGGREGATOR_VIMEO_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_AGGREGATOR_DAILYMOTION_TITL (2.6.33) 1 | WF_AGGREGATOR_[youtube]_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_AGGREGATOR_VINE_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_POPUPS_WINDOW_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_POPUPS_JCEMEDIABOX_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_LINK_SEARCH_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_FILESYSTEM_JOOMLA_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 | WF_LINKS_JOOMLALINKS_TITLE (2.6.33) 1 |

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3rd Party:: Widgetkit (2.9.20) 1 |

Modules :: ADMIN ::
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3rd Party:: Reset Hits module (3.3.0) 1 |

Plugins :: SITE ::
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Templates :: SITE :: yoo_luna (1.0.1) 1 | beez3 (3.1.0) 0 | protostar (1.0) 1 |
Templates :: ADMIN :: isis (1.0) 1 | hathor (3.0.0) 1 |

[Per Yngve Berg]

Are you using the "mysqli" database driver? The old "mysql" driver is no longer present in php 7.x

[mike_r]

Yes Per, the mysqli driver is in use. I have used a php script to check that it is activated. Also I believe it to be the correct driver as the site was working with Joomla 3.6.5.

[toivo]

I'm sure all extensions are 3.9 compatible.

That is not certain, until proven otherwise.

Both your template and the form extension must have been released over two years ago, when the latest version of Joomla was 3.6.0. Many updates have been published since then.

Suggest that you first disable all third party plugins by editing the extensions table in the database, then check if the site works without them and enable the plugins one at a time to locate the root cause.

Even if you do not see any errors being reported, it is possible that older third party plugins hide them. If you still have the install zip files of those plugins, you can upload them to the JED Checker and get a report, which highlights an error, if the extension turns off PHP error reporting. Download the JED Checker extension from JED, of course: https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/jedchecker/. You can run the JED Checker on a Joomla site, even on a localhost test site.

[mike_r]

Thanks Toivo, in desperation have installed a 3.9 site using the host’s installation wizard. No 3rd party extensions or template just the stock standard Joomla site with demo data. Same result - site doesn’t load.
I strongly suspect a problem with the host’s php and/or deployment of MySqli setup. The problem has now escalated with their tech team. Will wait in anticipation.

[toivo]

Your suspicion could be right. Your host may not have had much experience in supporting Joomla.

In addition, please note that people have had issues with the Joomla versions packaged and installed by hosts. Therefore this forum normally recommends users to download the latest version of Joomla from https://downloads.joomla.org and follow the installation instructions at https://docs.joomla.org/J3.x:Installing_Joomla

[leolam]

Are you using the "mysqli" database driver? The old "mysql" driver is no longer present in php 7.x

FPA | mysqli (7.0.32)

Leo

[Webdongle]

... yes I'm sure all extensions are 3.9 compatible. The site runs fine with 3.9 and php 5.6 (no errors), but when php is switched to 7.0.32 Joomla doesn't start at all - including the administrator backend. Switch back to php 5.6 and then all is well....

That doesn't mean the extensions are compatible. Make a backup then disable all 3rd party extensions (including the Template) then switch php versions.

[leolam]

@mike_r Check with Yootheme that Luna (Warp7) is fully compatible with Joomla 3.9.0 and (!) PHP 7

Leo

[sozzled]

After changing PHP version from 5.6 to 7.0.32 (the most recent version available from the hosting service) ...

Both these versions of PHP have been pronounced as EOL; see https://haydenjames.io/php-5-6-eol-end- ... ity-check/. If these are the only versions of PHP available from your webhosting provider it's probably time to find a new webhosting provider.

... the site becomes inaccessible. Both the frontend and the administration backend pages are blank with no error messages [but] ... if the PHP version is returned to version 5.6 everything works normally. An older site (Joomla version 3.6) on the same server controlled by the same PHP settings works fine. This site was an old development site that uses the same template and extensions as the 3.9 version.

Unfortunately for us, we only have your word that the problem sites are using the same mix of software as the "older" site that was used (once upon a time) for development purposes.

The consistent message given by several commentators in this discussion (@JAVesey, @pmleconte, @toivo, @leolam and @Webdongle) has been that there are one or more third-party extensions installed on the problem website(s) that are incompatible with PHP 7. From my own [very superficial] look at the FPA report, I couldn't say which one or more of those extensions are incompatible with PHP 7 because I don't have any familiarity with those extensions. It's not our job to research into every third-party extension that's available on the market that people may choose to use as they may or may not do. Our role here—in this self-help forum—is to offer our opinions and advice as to what might be the issue(s).

@Per (who knows a lot more about different webserver platforms than I do) has also suggested that there may be conditions in the hosting department that you should take on board; as I wrote at the outset, I would want to consider a change of webhosting provider as an option you should look at going forward.

For the time being, as a stop-gap to allow your website business to continue while you're searching for an alternative and more reliable webhosting partner, I suspect you're either stuck with PHP 5.6 or you'll need to isolate which extension(s) is/are incompatible with PHP 7.0. Good luck.

[mike_r]

Thanks all. The issue has now been resolved. After pointing out to my host that php 5.6 & 7.032 are past/at EOL they consequently updated their servers and have now made php 7.1 and 7.2 available. The site works well with no updates to 3rd party extensions or templates necessary.

[Webdongle]

... The site works well with no updates to 3rd party extensions or templates necessary.

If they are out of date they need updating.