PHP5/SQL5 Upgrades

[codesight]

Originally Posted by IronWarrior

How can something as simple as that, prove if it will work or not?

It will allow you to try PHP5 before the server gets fully switched to PHP5.

How is that not proving if it will work or not?

Change to PHP5 and do a little QA before the servers get switched.

It is that simple.

[Jordanlw]

PHP5 & 4 Are installed on HG servers currently,
If you don't add the Add Handler then it uses PHP4,
Later on (March 8th) there going to be removing PHP4.

[computel]

Already found a problem with my reminder script.

I got this error Fatal error: Using $this when not in object context in /home/compute/public_html/reminder/include/common.php on line 21

easy fix just change the $this to $that


but now the script is stuck on te join up page and if I click agree or disagree it keeps on bringing them back to the join.php page.

the site is here.

http://www.compu-tel.on.ca/reminder/join.php

this worked fine under php4 but when I added the AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php to the .htaccess the script doesn't work

How do I test with the MySql 5?

I think we need a message base so we can help fix each others scripts to make them work.

I'm a reseller and I have a few customers that use this script and I will lose them if it doesn't work

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by Jordanlw

PHP5 & 4 Are installed on HG servers currently,
If you don't add the Add Handler then it uses PHP4,
Later on (March 8th) there going to be removing PHP4.

March 8th is the date when they will start upgrading servers, PHP4 will be available for a while after that, as a secondary environment.

[SnapDaddy]

Hi All,

HG Staff, please chime in (or anyone how may know)!

I think some of us would be interested to know more about how / what will be involved with the method you will be using to automatically "Fix", "Upgrade", "Test" php4 scripts to become compatable with php5 / mysql5.

1. Are you using a commercial application to do this?
2. How much time will you put in to manual fixes to our scripts, if any?
3. Are there any tools that we can use to run our scripts through to flag which ones / lines that are not compatible?

I did find one company (eZee Web Solutions in India) that was offering a free win32 program, but has since pulled it from their site. http://www.php4tophp5.com.

If you google php4tophp5 you will find some download sites that still have their program. I haven't tried it, so don't know if it works?

Looking forward to reading replies!

[computel]

It did nothing at all I did a virus scan nothing came up but when I ran the file and nothing came up at all. so I really don't know what this file does.

Originally Posted by SnapDaddy

Hi All,

I did find one company (eZee Web Solutions in India) that was offering a free win32 program, but has since pulled it from their site. http://www.php4tophp5.com.

If you google php4tophp5 you will find some download sites that still have their program. I haven't tried it, so don't know if it works?

[computel]

php4tophp5 don't run it as it might be high risk spyware. I ran it twice and I had spyware doctor do a complete scan of my system and I had two high risk spyware. not sure if that file caused it but it is strange as I ran it twice.

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by SnapDaddy

Hi All,

HG Staff, please chime in (or anyone how may know)!

I think some of us would be interested to know more about how / what will be involved with the method you will be using to automatically "Fix", "Upgrade", "Test" php4 scripts to become compatable with php5 / mysql5.

1. Are you using a commercial application to do this?
2. How much time will you put in to manual fixes to our scripts, if any?
3. Are there any tools that we can use to run our scripts through to flag which ones / lines that are not compatible?

I did find one company (eZee Web Solutions in India) that was offering a free win32 program, but has since pulled it from their site. http://www.php4tophp5.com.

If you google php4tophp5 you will find some download sites that still have their program. I haven't tried it, so don't know if it works?

Well, realistically there's no universal fix or magic button when moving scripts from php4 to 5. If there was, we'd do it. Lots and lots of code has changed between the two versions, methods are different, etc. Writing a "universal translator" would be insane because it's an unattainable goal (and we'd sink a crazy amount of time and money into trying to do so). Programming styles have to be taken into account. Relationships between files.. it's an enormous undertaking to even attempt an automated converter.

So before we go down that road, I'll just say this conversion method is not going to be something like that. Rather, it's more like the occasional regex to perform minor fixes. There are too many packages, too many programs, and too many different programming styles for us to take every situation and fix it. A successful project like that would almost be like writing a mini compiler, but our primary focus is hosting.

Primarily, the upgrader will be regex and other similar methods to try to fix problems we know about with popular software. It wont be able to fix stuff we've not heard of, or problems we haven't seen. It's just a good faith effort to try to help. But everyone needs to try to help themselves too.

The easiest way to test it is to enable the php5 handler for the account.
See if things are functioning fine. If not, see if there's a new version. If things work fine, perfect. Most programs will work with PHP5; it's been out for years. If your version doesn't, usually there will be an upgrade available. And if not, usually the software has become stagnant and there might be an alternative out there that's better.

In short, rather than relying on the 'automated upgrade' script to fix stuff, it's best to test it ahead of time yourself to make sure things are fine. Thanks for your question.

[willow1872]

While i wont be staying with HG i would just like to say that they should be commended for the actions they are taking. Im sure most hosts wouldn't take the time to go through various scripts and attempt to modify them to work with PHP5 / MySQL5.

Good work guys, im sad to be leaving but wish you nothing but success for the future

[kmaw]

Originally Posted by willow1872

Good work guys, im sad to be leaving but wish you nothing but success for the future

I recall you saying problems cube cart upgrading 4 to 5 earlier in the thread...

Do you believe other hosts are going to keep MySQL 4 forever? You're just prolonging the inevitable.... or waiting until cubecart has a better upgrade for the DB?

[SneakyWho_am_i]

DaveC, thank you! Knowing what's compiled in is a big help.

I've run Coppermine Photo Gallery and Gallery2 for several months on php5 without a problem @ Hostgator, they even run fine for me in integrations or with apache's mod_rewrite. (for whoever's interested in that)

I have an account on bluedevil and an account on gator277. I know for a fact that the account on gator277 is working perfectly under php5 and should continue to run perfectly with mysql5. I have concerns about the stuff on bluedevil though.
I can opt out of the auto-script-checker on gator277 but remain opted IN for it on bluedevil??

[willow1872]

Originally Posted by kmaw

I recall you saying problems cube cart upgrading 4 to 5 earlier in the thread...

Do you believe other hosts are going to keep MySQL 4 forever? You're just prolonging the inevitable.... or waiting until cubecart has a better upgrade for the DB?

Indeed they wont but moving to a host that is still using MySQL 4 gives me more time to sort things out, a couple of weeks is simply not enough time 'for me'. Devillion had stated last year that from February 2008 all new releases will be coded for PHP5 and they will no longer support PHP4 which is fine. The host i am considering right now have told me they have no immediate plans to upgrade MySQL which puts me and my customers in the clear for the time being.

Ive dont really have anything more to say on the subject as i will be moving over the next couple of weeks so my opinion is not important and i sincerely wish HG every success

Originally Posted by gtgeorge

Just what I would want to do is stay with antiquated systems that aren't supported with security fixes etc. Especially using ecommerce related software. Did I mention X-cart works right out of the box with both php5 and mysql5

Im not interested in getting into an argument about shopping carts. CubeCart works with PHP5 out of the box and with MySQL 5 when creating a new database however there are known issues when upgrading the existing database. I cant stand X-Crap but that is my personal opinion of it which has absolutely no relation to the thread And CubeCart is security audited at great expense with any security fixes released within hours of being found. However, since it was last audited in May last year there have been no security issues :P

[SnapDaddy]

Thanks GatorJamyn,

I have several Joomla, ZenCart, Website Baker, CRELoaded (osCommerce fork), PHPBB2, 4images and PHPAuction websites.

I don't think Joomla or ZenCart will be an issue other then possible third party add-ons.

Not to sure about Website Baker, CRELoaded (osCommerce fork), PhpBB2 or 4images. Anyone tested these yet or have any input???

However, I'm most concerned about our Phpauction site. If anyone else is running a paid version of Phpauction and has any input on this, please let us know!

I really can't "Test" on these live commerce sites and I'm too overwhelmed right now to set up a localhost test environment, but will work on it.

As I do get a chance to test, I will report back my findings to help the rest of the HG customer base!

While I'm thinking of that, may be the HG staff can setup a thread for people to post which commonly used scripts pass the PHP5 /MySQL5 mustard!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by SneakyWho_am_i

Hey guys. I have some questions, and
TEST SERVERS
in my humble opinion as your fellow user... You don't even need test boxes for this. Copy your database or copy and rename all your tables. Copy your filesystem into a subdomain. This is if you're really desperate guys, come on. That is your test box.
php5 has been available on my server since I signed up (last year) but php4 was always the default. I've been running php5 the whole time though with this (or something very similar) in my .htaccess file:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

Simple. Magic bullet. Now you can see TODAY if your scripts are compatible with what was available (probably) all along.

Would this be the same as putting a .htaccess file into a subdirectory? Also, would there be any risk adding the handler to a live site, then if it doesn't work just pulling the handler off? I ask this because my wife has a blog which does lots of pingbacks and stuff, and when I transferred to this server she got some hits referring to my subdirectory (which her domain is pointing to) rather than her own domain. I'd like to avoid this if possible.

[SneakyWho_am_i]

Yes, put it into the (sub)directory where you want to try it out.

Sadly it will only let you try out php5 and not mysql5 but that's still imho probably the biggest worry.

If you put it in there and the site goes down, just take that line back out and save and you'll be back to normal.

Even if it doesn't APPEAR to go down, you should run through most of the common functions (filling out forms sort of thing) to make sure it is running as well as it looks.

While I'm thinking of that, may be the HG staff can setup a thread for people to post which commonly used scripts pass the PHP5 /MySQL5 mustard!

I think that might do some good.!?

Originally Posted by Stettin

Would this be the same as putting a .htaccess file into a subdirectory? Also, would there be any risk adding the handler to a live site, then if it doesn't work just pulling the handler off?

Yes - you can enable the php5 handler with .htaccess, then if something blows up when using php5, it's an easy thing to remove it again. We would even comment it out for you if you weren't able to access it (though I dont see any way that would happen).

Originally Posted by SneakyWho_am_i

Yes, put it into the (sub)directory where you want to try it out.

Sadly it will only let you try out php5 and not mysql5 but that's still imho probably the biggest worry.

If you put it in there and the site goes down, just take that line back out and save and you'll be back to normal.

Even if it doesn't APPEAR to go down, you should run through most of the common functions (filling out forms sort of thing) to make sure it is running as well as it looks.


I think that might do some good.!?

That is fine, I'm already on a MySQL 5 server. I had thought I was signing up for a PHP5 server as well when I transferred over, but didn't realize I had to put a handler in to enable PHP5. Otherwise I'd have tested my sites out with PHP5 before flipping the switch on my DNS. Oh well

[vaggelis]

Hello,

A very convenient way to test your scripts is to use the XAMPP platform.

It offers PHP 5.2.x and MySQL 5.0.x

I use this platform as a test bed before uploading my pages on the server.

A couple of questions regarding the update of MySQL.

1) Will the schema/data of the databases be changed in order to be compatible with MySQL 5?
2) Are unicode databases going to be affected at all?


I would deeply appreciate some technical details regarding the database upgrade procedure.

Thank you in advance

[3Cell Hosting]

As a reseller I am using my paid for version of WHMCS and I just tried the Addhandler for php5 and got the following error...

Site error: the file /home/david/public_html/whmcs/index.php requires the ionCube PHP Loader ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so to be installed by the site administrator.

I guess this will be addressed by HG as they now provide WHMCS as free billing option for resellers?

Regards

David

[kmaw]

Originally Posted by 3Cell Hosting

I guess this will be addressed by HG as they now provide WHMCS as free billing option for resellers?

Ticket support... they just need to load ioncube... or do some symlinks -- they'll look after it if you tell them the issue.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by 3Cell Hosting

As a reseller I am using my paid for version of WHMCS and I just tried the Addhandler for php5 and got the following error...



I guess this will be addressed by HG as they now provide WHMCS as free billing option for resellers?

Regards

David

When you added a custom php.ini file, you broke the zend lines..

Add this to the end of your php.ini file

zend_extension = /home/username/public_html/whmcs/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so

[calum]

I have a question about the automated script protection thing.

It does sound very like the type of thing that has an extremely high chance of going wrong.

Is there a list of scripts it will change? I think it might actually be easier for me to change my script settings instead of this.

[katsmeow]

This is not very professional at all.

Firstly the email requires you to opt *out* of a change. In other words, if for any reason I did not receive your email, or read it, then you will go ahead and modify the *code* on my website. Worse - using automated scripts as much as possible. Not only will I have no idea at the end of the day which scripts get modified, nor how they get modified, nor whether this corrupts the integrity of my data, I still wouldn't even be aware that anything had changed at all until I get feedback that my 10 or so websites start failing or behaving strangely.

I know for a fact that some of the functionality in my chosen CMS does *not* work under php5 and/or mysql5 because I have both of these installed locally where I prepare the sites before upload. It will be a heck of a lot of work for me to a) test every piece of functionality in 10 websites under php5/mysql5, b) learn enough php/mysql to fix all the bugs myself, c) carry out the coding and retest before uploading to your servers - which, by the way, then wouldn't run my website because I would have new php5 code in my scripts which won't run under php4.

When someone wants to upgrade their website from php4 to php5 and/or mysql4 to mysql5 - they do the scripting language and/or the database *at the same time* as their code. But that won't be possible because your rollout will just start on March 8th and proceed from there under some unknown schedule.

If it's not unprofessional enough to a) assume all of your clients received your warning email, and b) expect your clients to opt *out* of you changing their code, I then read this from the Chief Technology Officer:

"We have a lot of newbie clients, but there are a lot of keeners out there you guys/gals know who you are, and I am hoping for some input from them during the migrations."

To say that inspires zero confidence is a grotesque understatement.

I'll be the first to say I've recommended Hostgator to anyone who's asked - simply because of great chat support and the fact I've never had issues with the sites going down - but from what I've read of this upgrade so far I think you need to lift your game.

At the very least you need to assure us that php4 will be operating for 6 months (specify an exact date) following the upgrade to php5 and you need to email step by step instructions in plain English to all your clients explaining how to configure their site(s) so that when you roll over on an arbitrary date after March 8th to php5, their site won't know any different - it will continue on using php4/mysql4 until such time as *they're* ready to update their code and flick the switch so it ticks over to php5/mysql5. They'll need instructions on carrying out that step too.

From a concerned apache webhosting newbie.

[bfdexp]

I am a reseller w/ clients running mostly Fantastico mySQL / PHP systems such as Drupal. From what I am reading, 4 to 5 should be pretty seamless. So lets just say the upgrade goes and it creates problems with my Drupal site.

From what I am reading, all I have to do is throw a line of code in a .htaccess file to run back at PHP/ mySQL 4 and everything should be OK again. Correct?

Does anyone know how the upgrade should effect a Drupal 5.1 and up site???

I know a lot of people are nervous about the upgrade, but I have faith in Hostgator, they have not let me down yet...

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by bfdexp

From what I am reading, all I have to do is throw a line of code in a .htaccess file to run back at PHP/ mySQL 4 and everything should be OK again. Correct?

No, you better read again.

After the upgrade you are able to use PHP4 for a while (using the line in .htaccess), but you can not use MySQL4.