PHP8+

[user65489751]

Hello everyone,

I recently took over the admin role for ~150 XenForo Instances. Shortly after I embarked on testing PHP 8.1. However, despite our utilization of a minimal number of plugins, the testing instance was non-functioning after the change to PHP 8.1. This situation poses a challenge, given that PHP 8.0 is slated to receive only security fixes and will reach its end-of-life in a mere three months.

I'm eager to hear from the community about your firsthand experiences with PHP 8.1 and potentially PHP 8.2. While my search efforts were diligent, I couldn't locate a comprehensive discussion on PHP 8.1+ Compatibility that satisfied my desire for depth and recentness. Notably, XenForo itself continues to "recommend" PHP 8.0.

In my exploration, I also encountered the absence of an official list outlining the essential PHP Extensions for XenForo's optimal functionality. I'm particularly interested in confirming the necessity of the following extensions: MySQLi, GD, PCRE, cURL, SPL, SimpleXML, DOM, JSON, iconv, zip, and ctype.

Your insights and experiences on these matters would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
user65489751

 

[JonathanW]

8.1 working great for me for quite a while now, even with a few plugins in play.

MySQLi, GD, PCRE, cURL, SPL, SimpleXML, DOM, JSON, iconv, zip, and ctype.

These all look like the required list to me.

 

[duderuud]

Been running 8.1 for several months now without any issues. It is possible though that some specific add-ons aren't yet upgraded.

 

[imno007]

Ayep, on 8.1 myself - 8.1.21, to be exact - along with 80 addons. No problems.

 

[TPerry]

Been running PHP 8.1 for a while and am currently on 8.1.22. And I run quite a few add-ons... most paid, but a few "free".
Have had no issues crop up other than a few "warnings' when I go into debug/development mode. But those don't stop the site from running.

 

[Jeremy P]

PHP 8.1 will be officially recommended as of 2.2.14+, though it should work with 2.2.13 (barring a few deprecation notices in debug mode). The required PHP extensions are listed on the self-hosted page: https://xenforo.com/purchase/self-hosted

In modern versions of PHP, the PCRE, SPL, and JSON extensions are always available, and iconv and ctype are almost always included by default. That leaves MySQLi, GD, cURL, SimpleXML, and DOM. You may also want the GMP extension for push notifications, the Zip extension for installing add-ons in the control panel, and the Exif extension if using XFMG, but they are all optional.

 

[Jake B.]

Any plans for when PHP 8.2 would be supported? PHP 8.1 active support ends in 3 months

 

[duderuud]

Good luck XF devs

 

[Jeremy P]

I think we addressed most of the PHP 8.2 issues in XF 2.2.12. There are a few deprecations in 3rd party libraries, but those shouldn't cause actual problems this side of PHP 9 and are merely logged in debug mode. I'll take a look at sorting those for 2.2.14 but I imagine we would hold off on making an official "recommendation" until 2.2.15+ to be safe.