Re: Wordpress wows ...

On Mon, 2019-03-25 at 10:49 +0000, Lester Caine wrote: > I think I was under the impression that wordpress made life easier as > it  > keeps nannying you about keeping up to date. That is probably correct > if  > you only use the core components, but the 'money making' extensions > are  > probably used by 99% of people, the vast majority of whom are reliant > on  > the sellers to maintain things? > > Having just taken on another 20 domains all of which are live and > have  > been 'maintained' so that there are no 'outstanding updates' one > expects  > little trouble other than working out just which add-ons are > actually  > being used on each site? Except the virtual hosting is too helpful, > and  > has every version of PHP from 5.2 to 7.3 ... and some sites are still > on  > 5.5 while others are on different versions of 7. I did have a little  > panic as having upgraded one site from 5.5 to 7.2 - and fixed the  > remaining mysql calls in a couple of plug-ins so it didn't white > screen  > - I went to check another site and found it on 7.2 as well ... turns > out  > I'd simply picked one that had already been updated and now my crib  > sheet has the current versions of each site so I can now work > through  > the ones that are still on a PHP5 version and fix them. > > The problem is with wordpress keeping pushing 'autoupdate' even when  > it's identified the site is using plugins which have not yet been  > updated and in this particular case will not be provided with an > update  > at all how does one maintain a stable environment. The hosting is  > managing things nicely but has dropped 'mysql' from the PHP7.x > package  > list. Wordpress quite rightly still supports it in the core at the  > moment, so a scan always shows mysql_ function calls. I think I am > safe  > simply using the existing MariaDB server as that is already on 7.2  > anyway but should I ensure wordpress autoupdate is off until I can > clear  > the other problems? As yet I've not worked out where to find the > error  > logs on the hosting, the 'Errors' link just gives a blank page and > while  > the logs are being archived to a logs folder, there are no > 'deprecated'  > messages in those logs so the only way currently to test is switch > on  > error display and see them on the live site. > > Anybody been here before and can suggest where I should be heading > to  > sort out the sites ... short of simply dumping a copy on a local > machine  > which is essentially what I did with the first one :( But since the  > primary domain was changing on it that was the recommended route > anyway.  > I suppose I could take advantage of the hosting and simply create a > demo  > site using each main site in turn ... at least it would be tested in > the  > same environment! > WordPress is still using mysql_* calls? I might expect that of badly written plugins, not the WordPress core itself. If possible, try to find alternative plugins that don't use those methods, as they've been marked unsafe for years now, so it's little wonder they've been removed! You might be able to write a set of wrapper methods to create custom functions that replace the removed ones (although this might only work in a namespace) that can call through to either the mysqli_* functions or something else like PDO. --  Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk