The Dreaded PHP 7.2 Update – Fixed

PHP 7.2 Upgrade Xneelo

The Dreaded PHP 7.2 Update – Fixed

 

If you, like us, have been developing websites for many years, you’ll have a bunch of websites running on legacy software and frameworks. Like most hosting companies, Hetzner (now xneelo) is forcing the PHP 7.2 update on their servers, which will break a lot of our old sites.

The standard line is “You’ve had plenty of time to upgrade your website”.

Our issue, is a lot of clients don’t need a new website. Or simply don’t want to spend a lot getting their website upgraded.
The websites have to be upgraded, so it would be at our time and cost if want to offer a solution (we have a number of clients on software retainers).

So what do we do?

We first started by testing all the websites that would break.
Typically, most Joomla websites running 2.5 broke.
Wordpress running older plugins broke.

We have two choices…
1. We tell clients we simply can’t maintain their website any more… and we potentially lose a client
2. Or, we try to find a fix. A quick fix.

We spent about 40 to 50 hours trying to find a fix to one website (which we would then be able to apply to the others). It got to the stage where we believed there is no fix.

As a company that prides ourselves on good service, we can’t just say to a client “we can’t help you”.
I wanted to give them a viable solution.

So we found it. We found the fix.
It now takes us about an hour to patch each legacy website.

The benefits:

  • A very reasonable amount for clients to pay
  • Keep their legacy websites working
  • Buy some time before having to get a new website

 

The drawback:

  • It’s the only patch
  • Future updates may override the patches
  • Future PHP upgrades may break the site again

 

If you’d like to know how to fix your website… send us a request: