Upgrade problems

I am trying to upgrade phplist from 2.10.10 to the current version (3.2.4). I did the following:

  • backed up the database and the lists directory
  • uploaded the lists directory from the current release in place of the directory for the old version
  • edited the config.php to include the database credentials and the couple of other settings that were changed for the old version

After that when I tried to access /lists or /lists/admin I get a white screen and nothing in an error log anywhere.

My server is running PHP 5.3.29. The release notes seem to say that PHP 5.3 is supported. I am running too many sites on the server right now to be able to deal with testing an upgrade of PHP to 5.5, just for this one application.

After 3.2.4 failed, I took a shot at installing phplist 3.2.1 instead and was able to get that to run. Is there some trick to installing the current version, and is older PHP really not supported? What am I losing by not having the latest version?

Thanks.

When I get a white screen, many times it indicates an error in the config file (sometimes it’s just a small typographic error). You might want to check that very closely.

Also, please verify that you have this line set correctly:

# select the database module to use
# anyone wanting to submit other database modules is
# very welcome!
$database_module = "mysqli.inc";

Lastly, you will need the proper mysqli modules installed for apache and php.

Also, the bad news is that you will have to upgrade to PHP 5.4 or above for phpList 3.2.x to run correctly.

The issue is the version; the config works fine. What is the latest version of phplist that will still run with PHP 5.3? 3.2.1 works, but 3.2.4 does not.

I think you have answered your own question.

But just remember that PHP 5.3 has commands that have apparently been “depreciated” compared with the current versions so php programs will be (and are) written to work with the newer versions and sooner or later your hosts will upgrade their servers to be more secure and running PHP 5.5 and above. So, be prepared to find issues with older programs using commands that are no longer available.

I have an installation of phplist 3.2.4 that runs on php 5.3.3 so I guess that there might be a problem with the php configuration (missing extensions possibly), some other php change between 5.3.3 and 5.3.29.


By default phplist has error reporting disabled. If you change line 9 of file admin/init.php then there might be some indication of what is failing

error_reporting(-1);