PHP Version Upgrade Coming Soon

At the end of 2018 support for our current version of PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), which is version 5.6, will be ending. PHP is backend server processing language that is widely used by our websites to return web page content to people veiwing our site. We will need to upgrade to at least version 7.2 to maintain current vendor support and bug fixes.

I have already encountered the need to be at version 7.x with one of my plugins and put in a SiteSupport ticket on it. The wizards behind the curtain here at WA said they are already addressing the upgrade issue and will be letting us know when and how the upgrades will be rolling out soon.

Theme and Plugin Impacts

You will need to look at your themes and plugins to see if they support the newer PHP 7.x verson. Since 7.2 has been out for awhile, most of the theme and plugin updates that have released a version in 2018 should be fine. Themes or plugins that are updating now may be based on websites having the newer 7.x PHP version and possibly even be backwards compatible to our current 5.6 version.

This version issue just happened to me. I use Woocommerce and Wzone (Woozone) to manage my Amazon products and updates. I recently updated my Woocommerce version to the newest version, 3.5.1 to keep current with features and bug fixes and everything seemed to continue to work fine.

See special Woocommerce update information in Glen B's recent post - https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/glen-b/blog/attention-woocom...

However, I updated my Wzone plugin to its latest version, as there are several new desirable features and bug fixes, and it broke my ability to keep my products updated and broke the link between a product shown in the shop with its individual product page. It looks lke the newest version wants PHP 7.x and breaks with previous PHP versions. When I rolled back to the prevous version of Wzone the problems still exist. I am working with the vendor, AA-Team, to try and resolve this problem now.

Pay Attenton to Dependencies

So, the moral of the story is you need to carefully pay attention, and in some situations test offline in a sandbox website, impacts of upgrades of one plugin on another plugin and any published requirements of server side applications before upgrading. Sometimes vendors don't always publish the requirements but will work with you once you open a support ticket, if you have an active support plan with them, to resolve the problem. Of course we always have the SiteSupport team here at WA to help with any backend server issues or to work with us in resolving vendor testing and problem resolution.

Just curious if anyone has encountered any of these compatiblity issues or specifically a PHP version issue?