Updating PHP

phpwcms runs on current PHP versions only. This page tells you which PHP version each maintained branch needs, and what to watch when you move an existing installation to a newer PHP.

Which PHP version for which branch

phpwcms	GitHub branch	PHP
2.0.x (current development, 2.0.0-beta.2)	v2-dev	8.4 or newer
1.12.x (stable, 1.12.5)	master, v1.10-dev	8.2 or newer
1.9.x (legacy, 1.9.51)	v1.9-dev, phpwcms-legacy	7.4 or newer

PHP 5.x and PHP 7.0–7.3 are not supported by any maintained branch. The experimental v1.9-php7-dev branch was merged into the 1.9 line with release 1.9.21 and no longer exists.

If your host is still on PHP 7.4–8.1, stay on the 1.9.x legacy line — 1.12.x requires PHP 8.2 and 2.x requires PHP 8.4 at minimum. On PHP 8.x, replace an old 1.9 installation with the latest 1.12.x release (or 2.x) instead of patching it.

Server requirements

Required PHP extensions are intl, gd, iconv, mbstring, mysqli, fileinfo, xmlreader/libxml/dom/simplexml, openssl, plus curl and bcmath for external APIs and payment calculations. ImageMagick and Ghostscript extend the supported image input formats beyond GD.

The full server, database and extension matrix lives in the repository documentation: docs/requirements.

Updating an existing installation

Back up before every update — no exceptions. A complete database dump plus include/config/conf.inc.php, template/, filearchive/, content/images/ and content/tmp/, stored off the web server.

• phpwcms 2.0.0 and newer — use the in-app updater: Admin → System Update (phpwcms.php?do=admin&p=18). It dumps the database, downloads the release, verifies the manifest and runs pending database revisions.
• Everything else, including 1.x migrations — download and run the standalone updater setup/upgrade.php (CLI or browser). Upgrades from 1.x without an update manifest need --allow-unverified.

Both paths require PHP 8.4 or newer for 2.x, or PHP 8.2 for 1.12.x. The detailed walkthrough, including the recommended “upgrade locally, swap folders live” workflow for 1.x → 2.x, is in docs/installation/updating.md.

Historical: phpwcms 1.x on PHP 5.5 / 5.6

When providers dropped PHP versions below 5.5 back in January 2017, older phpwcms releases needed at most two little changes. Watch error reporting first — a completely white page usually means PHP error reporting is too restrictive or a PHP function collides with a phpwcms implementation:

• Cannot redeclare boolval() with PHP5.5
• WYSIWYG images empty

As a last resort, add this right after the opening <?php in config/phpwcms/conf.inc.php (or include/config/conf.inc.php in newer releases):

<?php
// Overwrite PHP error reporting
ini_set('display_errors', 0);
error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT);
// -----

Do not use this on PHP 8.2+ installations — the constant E_STRICT was deprecated in PHP 8.4 and the setting hides the diagnostics you need while migrating.