For the past several weeks, I’ve been getting messages in the WordPress dashboard about my site’s PHP version being beyond security updates, and that I should switch to a newer one. No sweat; the host has this easily accessible and lists numerous versions I can switch to. Only, the moment I do, any of them, the blog site goes down.

This is generally an indication that something on the site, usually a plugin, is incompatible with the version of PHP that I switched to. Okay, a little sweat now; this requires either a) checking the plugin/site compatibility with another plugin specific to that purpose, or b) disabling plugins until the site loads properly again, or c) both. Right in the warning that WordPress provides is a link to a compatibility checker, one that I already have installed.

Only thing is, this one is not anywhere near current, only checking up to three versions past the latest version of PHP. Guys, why are you recommending this damn thing? Nonetheless, I tried it out, identified two likely culprits, and disabled them. No go – the site still doesn’t load.

Ah, but you can get error logs with some editing of the wp-config file, which is easily done in a text editor! So, download the current version, edit that, re-upload it, and voila! All the errors displayed. Unfortunately, they display right inline with the site content itself, making it look shitty, but they can be copied from there. Those identified a couple of other plugins which might be the culprits, so I disabled them too. Still not loading properly.

Throughout all of this, I’m switching back and forth between versions, reloading pages, and then reversing what I’ve done. Did I mention backups? Yes, the entire WP database has been backed up right before I start, and the wp-config file as well.

Mind you, I’ve been updating the plugins and the main WordPress files routinely, so everything is ‘current’ as far as it can be. Now, this doesn’t apply to plugins that are no longer being supported or updated, which you would think the compatibility checker would flag. But just in case, I disabled all of the older ones that got flagged or indicated, one way or another. Still no go. Then I added a new plugin that would tell me when all of the other plugins were last updated, found all of the old ones, and deleted them. And the site still won’t load once PHP has been updated.

[Small sidetrack here: While I’m quite fond of open-source software because it’s almost always written better than what the large companies offer as well as the creators often being responsive to improvement suggestions, the major downside is, there is no motivation to maintain it – quite often, such projects are simply abandoned after a while. If you’re lucky, someone else has stepped in and created a new and improved version when this happens, but not always, and even then, you have to install the new version and get used to all of its quirks. This describes damn near all of the extras that can be added to WordPress, as well as numerous Linux/Ubuntu offerings and the firmware versions available for 3D printers. Still, it remains better than subscription bullshit.]

While doing this, I got a message at the top of the page while checking out the custom sidebar entries, the space over there to the left that has all of the extra doodads that I’ve added to make the site less boring – I mean, c’mon, what would it be like with only the posts? This message suggested making a change to a menu that was ostensibly linked within (basic html,) except it wasn’t, and I couldn’t locate that menu. Eventually, I think I found what it was referring to and disabled that function. Nada.

So at this point, the sidebar has been decimated, without allowing the upgrade to actually take place, which means I’m worse off than I started. And now I think I’m done. This kind of shit always takes so fucking long and rarely results in any improvement. While PHP might not be the most secure version that it could be, there is nothing on the site that actually needs security anyway: no payment portals, no personal information, no access to anything – just posts (and, in the main site, photos,) all of which are readily accessible anyway because that’s what the fucking site was designed for.

I was thinking this was related to a holiday, but if it is, I’m not going to observe it anyway. I’ll try to throw up another post shortly, though – I’d already written most of it before I decided to tackle this dumbass project, so it’ll offset this a little.