Fatal error: Function name must be a string in forum/global.php(832) : eval()'d code on line 98

[stefaandk]

My forum is throwing the following error all of a sudden, the file itself is actually fine, they all are and I since discovered that this is a database issue. When I restore my database it works but the last working one I have is 3 days ago so not ideal. Just curious what on earth could be in the database to trigger this type of error.

I used mysqlcheck to repair/optimise etc but all to no avail. Any advise would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[Mark.B]

What version of vBulletin are you running?
What version of php is running?

[stefaandk]

Vb 3.7.1
PHP 5.2.17

Old I know and the actual upgrade to 4.2 is scheduled for this weekend along with a whole os/php upgrade Things have been solid as a rock for years but seems we have a visit from Murphy prior of course. So regardless of the scheduled upgrade I still would like to get the current site live again.

Thank you.

[Mark.B]

I would upgrade php to 5.4 then upgrade vBulletin to 3.8.10. Your php version will need upgrading anyway one way or the other.

Get it fixed before upgrading to 4. Performing a major upgrade on a broken site generally results in an upgraded, but even more broken, site.

[stefaandk]

Tricky to upgrade the current site to 3.8 as it's heavily customised, but lets say that I were to do this first do you expect it to fix the database issue that is causing this error, any indication what in the database would be causing this?

Thanks

[Mark.B]

It isn't a database error so it isn't actually a database problem directly.

if you're upgrading to 4 you will lose all addons anyway.

I would start by disabling all plugins.

[Paul M]

3.7.1 is so old I dont have a copy lying around.
Looking in later versions, that looks like its a probably a problem with creating the header or footer, have you edited them recently ?

[stefaandk]

I ended up doing a test upgrade on that latest DB and it worked so I pushed ahead with my upgrade to version 4 and that ended up working again. Not sure what caused this issue still, was becoming too much of a waste of time compared to just pushing ahead a few days early with the planned upgrade. You may consider this one closed.

Thanks,