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RESOLVED
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Scheduled PHP upgrade - shared/reseller - 01/06/2016
We will be commencing PHP upgrades across our shared and reseller platform as of May 1st and June 1st, 2016.

Currently the server you are on is running PHP 5.4 as its primary version. I.e. if you have taken no special action to change the PHP version, you will be using 5.4. Unfortunately this version is end-of-life (EOL) as of 6 months ago, and hasn't received any updates since then. In order to safeguard the security and performance of our servers, we must move to a better supported version of PHP.

Therefore on the 1st of May 2016 we'll be changing the primary PHP version from 5.4 to 5.6, or 5.5 for some older servers.

There are very few incompatibilies with 5.5/5.6 compared to 5.4 but the change may have an adverse affect on some scripts/programs. If you're interested, the incompatibilies and changes are listed here: http://uk.php.net/migration55 and here: http://uk.php.net/migration56

If you wish to test any site with 5.5/5.6 ahead of time (and we recommend this course of action), then all you have to do is create/edit a .htaccess file within the site/area you want to test, and add the following line near the top:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php56 .php .php5 .php4 .php3 .php2 .phtml

Once this is done, test the site and make sure all expected functionality works. If that's the case, you can remove that line from the .htaccess file, and when we perform the upgrade, your site will continue to work!

If for some reason there are problems running the site under PHP 5.5/5.6, you can take the opportunity to fix the site to be more compatible - update the software or rewrite the code (if it's yours) to take into account the changes.

If the above is not an option, you can force the site to run under a particular version of PHP. For example you could force it to run under 5.4 so that when we change the primary version, your site will remain running 5.4. To do this, you would create/edit a .htaccess file within the site/area you want to force version for, and add the following line near the top:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php54 .php .php5 .php4 .php3 .php2 .phtml

Please be aware though that forcing the use of older versions of PHP is only intended to be a short-term fix. These older versions will eventually be removed from the server - and there may be very short notice of this if a major security flaw is discovered in an older version. Do not rely on them being present for ever, and ensure that the software you use is kept up to date with the latest versions for security best practice.

Updated by Chris Yates on 30th Mar 2016 @ 16:01pm
Scheduled PHP upgrade - shared/reseller - 01/06/2016
This work is now complete
Updated by Chris Yates on 9th Jun 2016 @ 11:54am