Announcements

We are pleased to announce (after some delay) the availability of PHP 8.2 on all our servers. With this, we are also giving notice of the end of the availability of PHP 8.0 in November.

PHP 8.2 general availability

PHP 8.2 was released in December 2022. Due to the many breaking changes from PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.0, we had to continue support PHP 7.4 for longer than planned. And this pushed back our implantation of PHP 8.2. While PHP 8.2 is a major version update from PHP 8.1, we do not anticipate many problems with client websites. For a summary of new functionality and deprecations, please see php.net.

PHP 8.0 end of life

Active support for PHP 8.0 ended in November 2022, with security updates to end in November 2023. And correspondingly, our support for PHP 8.0 will also end in November.

For more information on PHP supported versions, please see php.net.

Wil your website work with PHP 8.2?

If you website works with PHP 8.1, then it will likely work fine with PHP 8.2. The latest versions of WordPress and other popular web applications are compatible with PHP 8.2. However, some plugins and themes may not be compatible. Note, however, that the IonCube loader is not available for PHP 8.2 — we will add it if and when it becomes available.

To prevent disappointment, please check that your website is compatible with PHP 8.2 and make any necessary adjustments ahead of the events outlined in the “important dates” table below. We suggest the following steps:

• Update your web application and all its plugins and themes to the latest versions.
• For each plugin or theme, check the developer’s website for PHP 8.2 compatibility.
• If your website uses custom PHP code, then definitely check with your web developer.
• When you think it is safe, switch your website to PHP 8.2 (see below for instructions) and then test that everything works as it should. If you experience problems, switch back to PHP 8.1. and do the necessary troubleshooting.

To switch the PHP version of your website:

• Log in to your cPanel.
• Scroll down to the Software section, and open the MultiPHP Manager page.
• Select the PHP version of your choice for your website. The “inherit” option makes your website inherit the server default version. See the “important dates” table below for details on the default PHP version.

We recommend using the “inherit” setting wherever possible, so that your website will use the server default PHP version. However, for testing purposes, you would want to override this by selecting a specific PHP version. Also, if you are awaiting updates to make your site compatible with PHP 8.2 and do not want the automatic version upgrade on 30 June, then you will also want to set an explicit version.

Troubleshooting steps if PHP 8.2 does not work well:

• Enable detailed error message in your application. WordPress has a debugging option, for example.
• Check the PHP error logs. Errors are written to and error_log file in the relevant sub-directory under public_html.

Important dates