Help please, PHP7 upgrade has broken my website

[PA.com]

Hi. My webhosters, Easyspace, have sent me a message urgently requiring me to upgrade my website (www.piano-accompaniments.com) from PHP 5.4.45 up to 7.

I first checked around the web and specifically on this forum to see if that might cause any problems, but it really didn’t seem like it would, so I went ahead and did so within the Easyspace dashboard. I am on a shared server by the way.

It confirmed I had updated to PHP version 7, but soon after I became unable to view my website online, and the network test failed with the message below:

“Your Catalog URL appears to be invalid.The files uploaded to the given 'Path from cgi-bin to online store folder' can not be downloaded via the browser on the given Catalog URL. These two access routes don’t point to the same destination on the server.”

It gave me the (temporary) option to switch back to 5.4.45 and doing so make my website viewable again. Can anybody please explain why a PHP upgrade would make such a detrimental difference, and also what I should do when the server is upgraded permanently and my working PHP version is switched off.

Thanks very much
Paul

[Mantra]

It gave me the (temporary) option to switch back to 5.4.45 and doing so make my website viewable again. Can anybody please explain why a PHP upgrade would make such a detrimental difference, and also what I should do when the server is upgraded permanently and my working PHP version is switched off.

I upgraded to PHP 7 some time ago without any problem and was informed that this version of PHP was backwards compatible with previous versions.
There is a message in our domain site admin that states "if you are upgrading to PHP 7.2 and you have a MySQL database you *must* reset the database password".

This didn't apply in our case but may be worth considering if you have an SQL database set up.

Martin
Mantra Audio

[PA.com]

Thank you for your reply Martin.

I’m glad you were able to upgrade okay. I don’t have a MySQL database either, and my website doesn’t have customer accounts or anything like that.

I still don’t know what’s going to happen, at the moment I have left my site on PHP 5.4.45 and although I was originally told the migration date was yesterday it is still working for now.

However a technical assistant at Easyspace has today told me my site will still be migrated at some time, so perhaps that will break the website again then. At the moment I’m just hoping that if I leave well alone, and let them manage the migration rather than me force it through in my control panel, then things will work out okay.

I'll report back if (probably when) it breaks again and if I am able to find a solution if so.

[EdHarrison]

Worst case could you not go to sellerdeck hosting, I know there's cheaper hosting but it avoids these types of hard to resolve issues.

[PA.com]

Thanks for your reply Ed.

I agree that Sellerdeck hosting may help with certain website hosting issues, but sadly for me the pricing is just too high. My website has over 10 Gigabytes of data, and as SD don’t offer an unlimited hosting option (at least didn't used to), my hosting requirements would put me in a price band around four times what I’m paying now.

May have to be an expensive last resort of course, but in the meantime I’m hoping something that should (according to what I’ve read around the web) be a straightforward upgrade can be resolved. I just wish I had the technical knowledge to know why pretty much every upgrade I’ve ever had to make on my relatively simple website inevitably seems to break it.

[Goz]

There are a few developers around who could help you with your hosting.

[Mike Hughes]

Unless anything has changed recently then I suspect it's not the PHP version changing that's causing the problem so much as the PHP version change being part of an overall change that includes updates to various parts of the server environment.

The key thing is that Sellerdeck doesn't use PHP on the server so it shouldn't matter what version of PHP is there,

[PA.com]

Thanks for your replies.

They (Easyspace) went ahead and updated the PHP earlier, and surprise surprise my website is now completely broken. I don’t understand what other parts of the server environment, if any, have changed, all I know is that they apparently needed me to enable a higher version of PHP. I really don’t understand why, as I am on a shared server which I have no control over. And as you say, it shouldn’t matter what version of php is there.

Initially, after the update I was told:

“The issue was because there are some parameters in .htaccess file inside acatalog directory preventing any files to load. I have removed the offending rule and site is loading fine.”

But nope, that didn’t fix anything. I am at a loss, obviously trying to get Easyspace support to fix things, but utterly confused and concerned now.

[PA.com]

I am on version 16.0.4 by the way. I have checked the release notes going up to version 16.1.2 and there is nothing in there to suggest any PHP bug fixes, so I don’t really want to upgrade if I don’t have to. That always brings its own fair share of problems, plus I can’t even contact the server to upgrade at the moment anyway.

[gcamley]

Sellerdeck has no dependences on PHP on the server so any problem following the upgrade is not due to the PHP upgrade, there must be something else.

I tried viewing your site and initially, once for each page Chrome first shows an error that says 'This page isn't working' then it shows the page but unformatted.

Chrome Web Developer shows errors that report 'too many redirects' on a couple of JS libraries and actinic.css search Google for ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS. I notice there are a lot of 302 redirects for the site, this is probably what your host has seen when mentioning the .htaccess file.

To be honest, I don't see any reason why this problem only occurs following the upgrade of PHP. but there is certainly a problem that needs fixing.

[PA.com]

Hi Gordon

Thank you very much for posting and providing that info. As an update, a further edit of my htaccess file (by Easyspace) and a clearing of all my cache and cookies now means I can view the site on all my devices again. Which is certainly progress, but I'm now waiting to see if might also be because they defaulted me back to PHP 5.4.45 rather than 7. Anyway here are the htaccess changes they made:

From (originally)

RewriteEngine On

### START WWW & HTTPS

# ensure www.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

# ensure https
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

### END WWW & HTTPS

and now changed to:

RewriteEngine On

### START WWW & HTTPS

# ensure www.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

# ensure https
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

### END WWW & HTTPS

so basically just the two last lines of code have changed.

Interestingly it did still require me to clear cache and cookies, until I did that things still looked broken for me. Which I guess begs the question whether any regular visitors to my site will be unable to view it properly, speaking to my brother he can view my website on his new device but not the older phone he used to view it on. There's no way to force this is there?

Edit -- Easyspace now say they have cleared the Cache on the server, so I hope this may help with the regular visitors issue...

[PA.com]

Hi again

Even after my hosts have apparently cleared the cache, I am still finding problems at my website, sometimes it fails to load from certain links, or enters a server error spiral or asks me to clear cookies (again). My brother is also finding it problematic on some devices but not others.
However it seems some customers from elsewhere have been able to visit the site today and a fair few orders have come through successfully. I don't know how many visitors will have been met with server errors though.

I have a few quick questions, just in case anybody may be able to advise:

1) Gordon, I have looked at Chrome Web Developer on my website and I can't find where those 302 errors are displayed, would you mind telling me how to find these please

2) Does my htaccess code above (bottom one) now look acceptable or should I add anything further?

3) Do cache and cookie problems such as these work sort themselves out over time, or should I do anything further such as deleting session files or a website purge and refresh (within SD Troubleshooting)?

Thanks
Paul

[Buzby]

I am unable to view your site on my phone due to too many redirects.

[EdHarrison]

Working on my Galaxy S22, Chrome.

[PA.com]

Thanks Jason and Ed. This helps to demonstrate my issue, from the same starting point it works for some and not others. I hope this can be solved by a correctly written htaccess file, but I don’t know if the one I cite above follows the correct syntax and rules - it wasn’t written by me but by my webhosts.

Paul