Host Moving PHP 7.4 Sites To 8.3

ewoods

SiteGround sent email says PHP 7.4 is dropped 1 August and the site will automatically go to 8.3.

Not sure about the plugins and how best to prepare.

Any thought that I'm missing about this?

WooCommerce Shop with Stripe, PayPal -- and other two plugins not updated in years so that's probably the area to watch.

I thought staging site on 8.3 would help.

aLLengoMEZ

There are a few things to note before moving over. First, confirm what PHP version is the current one. You can find that by looking at Tools -> Site Health -> Info -> Server

Next, contact your host and ask for a staging copy then switch that staging copy to 8.3 first. Because with PHP version changes, some things might break or give a lot of notices. So if your staging copy is set to PHP 8.3, you can do the troubleshooting first before going live.

Another thing to make sure of is to watch the debug log for deprecation notices and make sure it isn't something bad or critical.

daniel.martinez

our host turned it on without staging.

We had one old plugin wich caused an error and we had to replace.

anita.rath

Most problems are if the plugins are old - check date updated and "tested up to" - this can tell if they've been abandoned or not before switching - replace any plugins that are old and if in doubt before the switch

ewoods

Theme as well?

Should I be checking the theme as well as the plugins?

aLLengoMEZ

This would be my biggest concern as well.

In most cases you'll see problems with child theme's functions.php and see notices like this in 8.3 log (the deprecrecated function calls).

Easy to spot.

AtomicAnchor4

WP Tavern's latest episode should help clear things up in terms of security issues from continuing to use PHP 7.x and some of the improvements (and performance increases) offered in PHP 8.

It's still totally worth the move.

N3onc0m3t

This means the WP version, not the PHP. It's not related.

This:

The "Requires PHP" line, is what you want to see.

One thing that may help to do at this point to reduce your risk is to see what plugins you have and then check whether they're supported by their respective plugin developer.

If you do go the full "go live" route on the new WP+PHP version, you would want to make sure all your plugins are supported by their devs.

To help check this, for each plugin you have on your site, there's the "tested up to" line on the plugin page.

This means if their's not a "tested up to" version in which WP version is listed, that means there's no real plugin dev support for WP versions above what's listed.

That's not a fail, but it's worth considering for your peace of mind.

anita.rath

got that - and "Require PHP" is only a minimum. So a plugin can cause problems even if the PHP version is higher than this.

ewoods

Staging went to 8.3 -- one slider plugin was issuing warnings and got replaced -- live site is on 8.3 and runs noticeably better

aLLengoMEZ

You should consider upgrading WordPress to 7.0.2 (the 17 July security update) while you are upgrading the site.

There's not too much work needed.

But this is a security update so not a non-essential task.

ewoods

Done. Upgraded both.