Site issues after updating PHP version to 7+

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  • jkotlowski
    Senior Member
    • May 2015
    • 103
    • 5.1.x

    Site issues after updating PHP version to 7+

    Hi, I recently contacted my host and asked them to update my PHP version, since I saw that older versions would not longer be compatible after December. Previously, I believe my site was running on PHP 5.6.38, I asked them if they could upgrade it to 7.1 or higher.

    They ended up adding 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2 to my MultiPHP Manager and I can now swap between multiple versions.

    PHP 7.0 does work, mostly. But occasionally the site's home page will load a blank page instead of the content. If I've got a thread open already and hit the refresh button, the thread will reload just fine. The Admin CP also seems to work. The blank page seems to be isolated to only the home page of the site and it only happens occasionally, not all the time. But the Avatar Upload tool in user profiles seems to be busted. You can click on the edit avatar button, select an image to upload from a computer, resize it, and hit save. But when you hit save the window just closes and no avatar is uploaded. It just reverts to the forum's default avatar.

    PHP 7.1 and 7.2 do not seem to function at all. No matter what pages I open, they're all blank. I can still access the AdminCP, however. And it shows that the PHP version is updated. Just that the rest of the site seems to be broken.

    As a general note, I'm a novice in all of this. I've never dealt with updating my PHP version before and despite looking through the vBulletin FAQs, I'm still pretty lost on what the issue could be. Were there any additional steps on my end that I needed to take before asking for the PHP version to be updated?

    Many thanks in advance.

    -edit-

    Just got the same blank page on my home page, even though I rolled back my PHP version to 5.6.38. So this doesn't seem to be isolated to newer versions of PHP. I wasn't have this issue prior to asking for my PHP version to be updated, however.
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  • In Omnibus
    Senior Member
    • Apr 2010
    • 2310

    #2
    It sounds like they may have disabled a necessary PHP module in the PHP7.x versions. The best way to trace the error would be to enable debug mode and paste the error here for support to analyze and assist you.

    Comment

    • jkotlowski
      Senior Member
      • May 2015
      • 103
      • 5.1.x

      #3
      Originally posted by In Omnibus
      It sounds like they may have disabled a necessary PHP module in the PHP7.x versions. The best way to trace the error would be to enable debug mode and paste the error here for support to analyze and assist you.

      http://vb5support.com/reference/debug_mode
      I'll do that this evening when I've got more time. Thanks you.
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      • BirdOPrey5
        Senior Member
        • Jul 2008
        • 9613
        • 5.6.3

        #4
        Are you using the latest VB5 version, 5.4.4?

        Comment

        • jkotlowski
          Senior Member
          • May 2015
          • 103
          • 5.1.x

          #5
          Originally posted by Joe D.
          Are you using the latest VB5 version, 5.4.4?
          Yes, I am.
          Want bigger avatars for your forum? There's a mod here. But be sure to vote for the JIRA requesting the fix here!

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          • jkotlowski
            Senior Member
            • May 2015
            • 103
            • 5.1.x

            #6
            Originally posted by In Omnibus
            It sounds like they may have disabled a necessary PHP module in the PHP7.x versions. The best way to trace the error would be to enable debug mode and paste the error here for support to analyze and assist you.

            http://vb5support.com/reference/debug_mode
            I enabled debug mode. What exactly am I looking for with the error? How would I find what to copy and paste here?
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            • Wayne Luke
              vBulletin Technical Support Lead
              • Aug 2000
              • 73976

              #7
              If there is a PHP related error, debug mode should show it on the screen.

              When I visit your site, I see it online but in Maintenance Mode.
              Translations provided by Google.

              Wayne Luke
              The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
              vBulletin 5 API

              Comment

              • jkotlowski
                Senior Member
                • May 2015
                • 103
                • 5.1.x

                #8
                I didn't see any errors displayed on the screen. I went and looked at my error log and found a ton of PHP memory errors, though.

                [10-Oct-2018 16:11:44 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 20480 bytes) in /home/t5cid/public_html/core/vb/search/core.php on line 517
                Hundreds of them, in fact. I would assume that this is likely the issue?
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                • Wayne Luke
                  vBulletin Technical Support Lead
                  • Aug 2000
                  • 73976

                  #9
                  That would be a problem. We need to know what you're trying to do when you encounter the error. How many channels/forums do you have? How many posts are in your largest topic? What happens if you remove all third-party addons?
                  Translations provided by Google.

                  Wayne Luke
                  The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
                  vBulletin 5 API

                  Comment

                  • jkotlowski
                    Senior Member
                    • May 2015
                    • 103
                    • 5.1.x

                    #10
                    I think I found the problem. For some reason, my message searching options had a "maximum search results" option of 25,000. I'm not sure how or why that happened, but I know that since I use a search module on my home page to return recent topics that it was probably causing some serious issues with the site. I knocked that down to 300 results and viola... It seems to be fixed now. I was even able to turn the PHP version to 7.2 and it's working again.

                    No idea why the searches were so screwed up, though.


                    Thanks for the assistance, guys. If the problem pops back up, I'll come back.
                    Last edited by jkotlowski; Wed 10 Oct '18, 9:17am.
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                    • jkotlowski
                      Senior Member
                      • May 2015
                      • 103
                      • 5.1.x

                      #11
                      Ok, disregard that. When I had the PHP version set to 7.2, I couldn't access some of the threads with thousands of replies. Rolling PHP back to 7.0 seems to have fixed that problem, though.

                      Originally posted by Wayne Luke
                      That would be a problem. We need to know what you're trying to do when you encounter the error. How many channels/forums do you have? How many posts are in your largest topic? What happens if you remove all third-party addons?
                      That error just happens when I try to access a thread, before it was happening whenever I loaded the home page. But changing the search results to a lower number seems to have fixed the home page issue.

                      I have 6 forums and 26 channels all in all. The topic with the most replies is currently sitting at 29,273. I don't have any third party addons, I tried out a few Dragon Byte Arcade things for a bit but had a ton of problems with them and uninstalled them all and deleted the files.
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                      • Wayne Luke
                        vBulletin Technical Support Lead
                        • Aug 2000
                        • 73976

                        #12
                        The number of forums/channels shouldn't have a problem. However, that topic should probably be closed and a new one started.
                        Translations provided by Google.

                        Wayne Luke
                        The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
                        vBulletin 5 API

                        Comment

                        • jkotlowski
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2015
                          • 103
                          • 5.1.x

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Wayne Luke
                          The number of forums/channels shouldn't have a problem. However, that topic should probably be closed and a new one started.
                          I've noticed other vBulletin websites close larger topics and restart them. Is this mainly a memory issue or something? I used to post on a non-vbulletin website (I think it was completely hand-coded) that had topics with hundreds of thousands of replies. So I was always a bit confused at why I'd see vbulletin sites locking bigger topics.

                          Is there any way around that without risking performance issues?
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                          • Wayne Luke
                            vBulletin Technical Support Lead
                            • Aug 2000
                            • 73976

                            #14
                            There is a lot going on when you load a topic. Large topics use lots of memory (doesn't matter which software). You can work around this by continuing to toss additional memory at the issue by adjusting your php.ini file on the server. If you cannot do this, then you should lock the topic and start a new one.

                            Adding memory doesn't solve the problem. It just hides it temporarily. Eventually, you'll need even more memory. There is an open bug report to make this process more friendly. You can see it here: https://tracker.vbulletin.com/vbulle...sues/VBV-17204
                            Translations provided by Google.

                            Wayne Luke
                            The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
                            vBulletin 5 API

                            Comment

                            • jkotlowski
                              Senior Member
                              • May 2015
                              • 103
                              • 5.1.x

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Wayne Luke
                              There is a lot going on when you load a topic. Large topics use lots of memory (doesn't matter which software). You can work around this by continuing to toss additional memory at the issue by adjusting your php.ini file on the server. If you cannot do this, then you should lock the topic and start a new one.

                              Adding memory doesn't solve the problem. It just hides it temporarily. Eventually, you'll need even more memory. There is an open bug report to make this process more friendly. You can see it here: https://tracker.vbulletin.com/vbulle...sues/VBV-17204
                              I voted for the issue.

                              Do you have a recommended number of posts to use as a cutoff point? Something I should aim to keep threads under prior to locking?
                              Want bigger avatars for your forum? There's a mod here. But be sure to vote for the JIRA requesting the fix here!

                              Comment


                              • In Omnibus
                                In Omnibus commented
                                Editing a comment
                                Based on my personal experience I would say to cut threads off at 10,000 posts.

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