A forum moved from PHP 5.2 to PHP 8.4

After the client switched hosting companies, their board was still stuck on PHP 5.2 and needed to run on a current version of PHP. A login bug that had been hanging around for a while came along with it.

The objective

The old host had been running PHP 5.2, a version that dropped out of support back in 2008. The new host offered current releases and the client wanted to land on a recent stable one.

That's not a setting you flip. Code written for 5.2 leans on functions and behaviour that got removed years ago, so the forum software itself had to move forward at the same time.

On top of that, the Remember Me option on login had stopped working.

What I did

I worked out what the board would need to run on a current PHP version and what was going to break on the way there.

I updated the forum software and its extensions to versions that actually support PHP 8.

Then I fixed the session handling behind the Remember Me option.

This was my second contract with this client. The first was troubleshooting and customisation on the same board.

The result

The forum runs on a supported PHP version on the new host, and the login behaves the way it's supposed to.