Support PHP 7.4

  • James Revillini

    (@jrevillini)


    1 year, 1 month ago

    Is there any chance you’ll reintroduce support for PHP 7.4? I switched to PHP 8.1 but got a WP error that the mysqli extension is not installed. I questioned the host and received a response that mysqli extension for PHP 8.x is not well-supported, and after some research, it seems that this is true. WordPress in general only supports the PHP 8.x versions with exceptions. I also tried installing the mysqlnd (native drivers) for PHP 8.x but the website started generating other critical errors, probably due to other plugins and code.

    So part 2 of my question (if you have time and would kindly lend me your knowledge)-
    If this plugin does not intend to continue supporting the PHP 7.x, do you know how I should get around this mysqli extension issue? It’s quite possible that I’m missing something and just need to fix my server environment (which is a VPS with WHM and cPanel and EasyApache4) so I should be able to do so).

    Thank you for your time and work on this!!!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author Joshua David Nelson

    (@joshuadnelson)

    1 year, 1 month ago

    Hey James!

    Thanks for reaching out about this. My approach for PHP support has largely been guided by the what the PHP project supports instead of WordPress core, with the mindset that I don’t want to support versions of PHP that are beyond end-of-life.

    However, you make a great callout in regards to WordPress support of 8.x “with exceptions.” I think those exceptions are all pretty minor, but that’s a little bias of me. According to the stats, about 31.7% of WordPress users are on 7.4 at the time of writing, which is a pretty large group.

    We’re not doing anything in this plugin that requires 8.x, so I’m open to going back to 7.4 minimum PHP until WordPress core bumps it’s minimum or we want to use features only available in a new version. I’m working on an update that should roll out this month, I’ll consider this some more and likely change it in that release.

    As a workaround for now, you could download the current version of the plugin and change the “Requires PHP” header in the readme.txt to version 7.4 to side-step the issue.

    Plugin Author Joshua David Nelson

    (@joshuadnelson)

    1 year, 1 month ago

    All that said, you should actively work to be on a newer, and supported, version of PHP. Version 8.3 or higher right now, version 8.2 will get security updates until next year.

    Also, I would push back on the claim “mysqli extension for PHP 8.x is not well-supported” it’s a core extension to the PHP project and has been for years now.

    Thread Starter James Revillini

    (@jrevillini)

    1 year, 1 month ago

    Absolutely agree with you on all points, and had a feeling the host tech was fibbin’ about mysqli support hehe

    I appreciate you taking the requirement down while those of us on the PHP 7.4 branch upgrade. TBH I think I can use PHP 8.x now … for some reason the mysqli extension is installed by EasyApache4 for that one, but not the others.

    I had used a different workaround to get the earlier version that supported on PHP 7.4 (which I’ll include here for others who may want to try this route):

    1. download THIS plugin from the main page.
    2. upload and install it to WP.
    3. install the WP Rollback Plugin and activate.
    4. go back to installed plugins.
    5. Under Archive Content with Archived Post Status plugin, click Rollback.
    6. Roll back to an earlier version – in my case, version 0.3.9.1 to get PHP 7.4 support.

    When I figure out how to make my VPS support mysqli for 8.1+ I’ll add that info to this thread.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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