@PaulNewman please cease the name-calling, ad hominem attacks. If you haven’t checked this forum’s community guidelines, now would be a good time to do so: FAQ - InfinityFree Forum
As @KangJL and everyone else in this thread has told you: Your site being broken is a result of using outdated Joomla, which is no longer compatible with the current PHP version of your websites, PHP 8.2.
As you can see on the announcement of this forum, the PHP upgrade was announced quite some time ago:
It is your responsibility, and yours alone, to keep your website up-to-date. InfinityFree is a free web hosting provider; they have no obligation to keep outdated PHP versions which create security vulnerabilities and put thousands of users at risk, simply because you don’t want to maintain your websites.
You keep saying it was working some time ago; yes it was, and now it isn’t. This is the result of hosting upgrades; the hosting upgrades didn’t break your site, your refusal to upgrade your software does.
Hi Paul, this is no way to talk to our community and its members. We try our best to help people. If your going to be a dick, we don’t have to help you. Joomla has written an upgrade guide. If you knew how to run your website, you’d know how to fix your problem.
You can drive drunk. Should you? No. You can be a dick online. Should you? No! Actions speak louder then words, Paul. Please be nice to our community, else we’ll have to take our actions further.
I wanted to share my view and provide the opportunity to respond, especially because @PaulNewman seemed to request it specifically, but apparently we’re at the stage of personal attacks already.
This error was triggered by the PHP upgrade, yes. The issue is that the version of Joomla you are using is not compatible with PHP 8.2, which is why it’s broken.
I understand why you’re complaining about us that we did this. Your website was working fine before, and now it isn’t. You didn’t change anything, and we did, so you could indeed say that we broke your website.
Any software system needs to be updated regularly to keep them running fast and safe. Software developers regularly release new version of their software with new features. Older versions are supported for some time, but supporting many different versions takes a lot of effort, so support is dropped. This means that any (security) bugs found in the software will not be fixed, which could result in the software providing opportunities to hackers to break the server, which is bad for everyone.
This is one of the reasons we need to regularly update PHP and MySQL on our hosting: to keep our systems secure.
Another reason: I did some testing a month or two ago, and found that for about half of all scripts in Softaculous cannot be installed because they require at least PHP 8.1. So while your software worked on PHP 7.4 but not on PHP 8.2, it was the other way for many other sites, where site owners were forced to downgrade their software to run on our hosting.
So while this upgrade breaks your site, it fixes many others. We can’t please everyone.
The only way we could please everyone is by offering the choice of PHP versions. We did do this in the past, but for us, it was the worst of both worlds: our servers were vulnerable due to old, unsafe PHP versions, we had a lot of duplicate work to keep all the versions secure, and keeping the whole thing working well took a lot of effort.
So we removed PHP version selection and are now only offering one version of PHP, which we intend to update regularly to make sure that we are running an up to date, stable, supported and secure PHP installation.
The consequence of this is that you need to regularly update your website software as well to make sure it works with the latest PHP version. If you stay on top of updates, you should never have any problems with PHP upgrades.
PHP version selection is now restricted to premium hosting, which provides all PHP versions from 4.4 until 8.2.
So where does this leave you? The problem you’re seeing right now means you should probably upgrade to the latest version of Joomla. This new version should work properly on PHP 8.2.
Yes, the upgrade will cumbersome, and take a lot of effort without providing any business value to your site. Unfortunately, the reality of software is that it must be kept up to date, this will take effort, but you must do it to make sure your website keeps running well.
Please note that we already announced back in March that we were going to upgrade PHP. I didn’t say it in the announcement (I probably should have), but that announcement should have informed you that you should check to make sure your site is compatible with PHP 8, and take action if it isn’t.
If you take an “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” approach to updates, then you do you. But please be aware that running old software WILL break eventually, and then you’ll need to scramble to fix it. Staying on top of updates will help to avoid that.
You say we broke your site, and so that we should fix it. I can see your point in the first, but I cannot do the latter. Our hosting is provided as-is, and we reserve the right to make changes. This includes regularly updating our server software. The consequence is that you are required to do the same.
All in all, I can suggest one of the following paths forward:
Upgrade your website to the latest version of Joomla so it works with PHP 8.2.
Migrate your website to hosting that still provides PHP 7.4. iFastNet’s premium hosting provides PHP version selection.
If you do this, please only do this as a stop gap measure so you can plan the upgrade. Older Joomla versions will have unfixed security problems too, so for the security of your site, you really should upgrade sooner or later. It’s up to you whether you want to do this now or soon, just don’t do it never.
We cannot fix your website for you. Your lax approach to updates doesn’t entitle you to special treatment with special server configuration or individual coding assistance to fix it.
I silenced @PaulNewman until tomorrow to give him some time to calm down and think about what he wants to say next.
Feel free to participate, but given how this discussion is already quite heated, everyone please think before you type, and remember to behave constructively and be respectful to each other.
Slow mode is engaged in this topic to help with the aforementioned.
Please keep the discussion about this topic in this topic. Additional topics about this issue will be closed and/or deleted and silences will be issued.
In case anyone wants further reading, here are some the spin-off topics:
I find it hideous that it was rather easier for OP to indirectly bring up that we are being a bunch of Capitalists who break websites for money, than to aknowledge that outdated programs are prone to breaking as the time goes on.
People here could help OP and give him advice but it is his own responsibility to take action and fix the situation on his own rather than name calling whom try to help.
In a nutshell, you cannot help someone who refuses to be helped and it is shown by the action.
One similar example I can give at first is that I (pretty) much have the same issue but with a tool called mediawiki, so basically my wiki worked fine till one day errors appears, my first reaction was to google the error and see if something was related to this (unfortunately nothing, not even ChatGPT knew).
Jokes apart, then I went on softaculous and saw there was an update available which I did, it (unfortunately) went wrong but well…life continues. So I did reinstall the software (and lost all my data, rip me, but actually that’s my fault). In short after further investigations, it was a mediawiki issue about updates (and it still occurs if anyone wants to know).
I said all of this to come to the following conclusion: Despite all the effort put to host a website, you (probably) installed a template (otherwise you’d unlikely be in that situation if you hosted your own code), thing is companies can suddenly do updates whether you like it or not. I feel you, I understand it is frustrating that it does not work anymore, but the fault isn’t from infinityfree, and then in other words , that’s not a good thing to blame others when they’re not responsible for it (and even if they were, let’s remember everyone is human and as far as I know, nobody is perfect (except me).
If, as a Jr developer I may give you an alternative solution, try to back up, that’s the best solution at least to keep your data when such things happens, so in the case an update goes wrong, at least you can reinstall the app, quickly do the setup again (which you backed up) and there you can go again. Of course if the update goes through without any problem, that’s even better
This being said, have a great day everyone!
P.S: For my issue, I hosted my new website on github and it’s all good now, imo Mediawiki is an outdated technology anyways.
It was clear to me from the very start that our sites were perfectly working before an update and now they are not, so thanks for breaking our sites… When things are working, we have no inclination to waste manpower on them, we trust people to do the right thing by us and not break our sites…
I also understood that this update has been forced on people that might not want in in order to try and move them onto paid hosting… Why when you guys don’t even benefit financially from that unless it is just a commission scam, one can only assume you are on a referral percentage or people would not be facing all these little ruses all the time here… Our site was woprking fine, we should be confident enough to leave it for a weekend and it be the same state when we return to it… Your lack of social media presence and the reviews on Trust Pilot should warn people what they are in for here, but while accepting it is a free plan, the least people should expect is that host server updates break sites… That has clearly happened here… The fact that you hide control panel options that would enable me to fix all of our sites says it all really…
I am not after community help, the lack of customer service here is what it is… The fact that some individual not even paid by Infinity Free can waltz onto one of my threads and start running up their post count on it, I hae never wanted the Clique to get involved, I have always wanted customer service from accountable people… The Clique ganging up on people is what it is, it doesn’t bother me… This place would run alot more smoothly with designated competent accountable customer service, not a load of Clique forum members who are clearly more adept at virtue signalling than anything else…
It is a shame that you guys feel that you can just waltz round your server breaking sites and people just have to accept it, simmply for being on a free plan… Such rampant capitalism as that, well it is good for nobody is it… I know how aggressive the forum is and do try to leave the toxicity in it to others, but when you break our sites and there is no customer service people are forced to deal with the Infinity Free clique… The form support needs to be closed down and proper customer service needs to replace it… That poor guy with a brain tumour the other day, he received no help at all and was even chastised for daring to speak in his own language… That is the level of toxicity here from the Clique… I only come here to fix our sites and nothing else… I would much rather deal with it in a more professional manner…
Hopefully you guys will fix our sites soon, well rather hopefully you guys will have the ability to put updates on that actually enhance the sites hosted here rather than break them… Hopefully the Klique members will be able to scroll past without running their post count up all day…
This isn’t exactly how things work. As you were told by the Admin, an “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it” approach is not advisable at all in the area of web hosting, because things are constantly evolving. Upgrades occur, and you, or whoever is responsible for maintaining the websites, is expected to keep up with the pace.
You have understood wrongly then.
Once again, as mentioned by the Admin, the reason the update took place is because having an older version poses a security risk to everyone.
You are right that older versions can be supported; but they’re supported in premium hosting only, not because there is an evil plan to force everyone to upgrade, but because the manpower and resources required to keep older versions secure just isn’t viable for the myriad of free hosting users. In an ideal world, everything could be offered for free. But we’re far from an ideal world, and losing time and money in keeping outdated, insecure, dangerous software secure and working is just not possible.
InfinityFree offers a community forum and community help though, and you knew that when you signed up.
It has been mentioned multiple times in posts here by the admin, but I think the KB can answer this perfectly as well:
Your sites aren’t broken because of anything done by the hosting platform. You have been told multiple times, that the responsibility to upgrade them and keep them working is up to you.
Unfortunately, I do not believe you’re listening, and it seems that no matter who says something or how they say it to you, you just disregard their posts and make more demands.
There is nothing that can be done about this. You can continue to complain, but I will guarantee you, that the situation will not change by itself. Older PHP versions aren’t coming back in any near future I can see, and I don’t see you wanting to upgrade your software.
You have two solutions:
Accept your responsibility to keep your software up-to-date and update it. It shouldn’t be an extremely difficult process, given Joomla’s popularity and ease-to-use.
Find a different hosting provider. You seem to be looking for Managed Hosting, a hosting service in which you install your software once and the hosting company handles the setup, administration, management, and support of your software. Since you run a non-profit, maybe you’ll be able to find a company to sponsor that and have the ability to offer this for free.
But please note, InfinityFree does not offer managed hosting, and I do not see it being offered in the foreseeable future, since this is a paid service, and InfinityFree is a free web hosting company.
That’s not the reason for the update. As previously stated, we the PHP version was updated to improve security across all websites, provide support for new software (And the latest versions of existing software), and remove a PHP version that is no longer supported.
Yes, there is the consequence of websites running older code breaking, but in 99% of cases, all you have to do is updated your software to the latest version, or just change a function or two in your codebase. (Wait - I think you are actually included in this group - just update your software and all will be fixed!!!)
If you need the older PHP version, yes, you could pay and upgrade to premium hosting, or you can just go somewhere else and pay someone else.
I say the trustpilot reviews are pretty accurate, and even you thought this was a good service because of them, and this is a good service. But it’s just impossible to satisfy everyone, and it would not make sense to keep outdated software for one person (you), when hundreds of others want the new and better stuff.
I don’t get this line. The PHP version switcher does not exist. And if the ‘hidden’ button was put back, using the tool would not change anything, because there is only one PHP version installed. Why? Because the free hosting backend is customized, and it’s a big hassle to support multiple php versions (especially older ones, which needs additional software to keep them secure).
Yes, it’s possible, but nobody is paying the engineers and developers to do it (Which is why premium has it, but not free).
And why is going to pay for it? Obviously not you. So why should you have access to it? Why should it exist? Premium hosting is paid, so premium hosting has true support (This is the same with 99% of other free and premium providers, not just InfinityFree - iFastNet)
Take a look at 99% of the other posts on this forum. No toxicity. I hate to say it, but the only difference between those threads and this one is you.
You’re not paying us to fix it, and it’s your website. Fix it yourself. It’s actually quite simple (And you would be done with it by now if you worked on your website instead of complaining about it).
I was going once more through your post and noticed this part:
I am assuming you’re referring to the “Select PHP Version” option of the control panel.
That option was not hidden to prevent you from selecting a different PHP version, it was hidden because iFastNet removed the tool’s functionality and replaced it with a deprecation notice. I used a different account on their hosting platform to take a screenshot:
Make of this what you want to; InfinityFree does not wish to display options giving people false hope only to be met with an “upgrade to premium hosting” notice, which is why it was hidden.
Yes, infinityfree is just getting referral payouts from ifastnet.
Tbh, many of them including me are already a community regular or even higher, a leader, they dont need more post counts. They were just trying to help and you were not listening.
Since you are insisting they you are the one that is correct and everyone else is wrong, it is pointless for us to keep replying to you. Therefore, why not all forum members just stop replying to this post? This will satisfy his needs:
Many free services do not provide staff support. Staff support time is expensive and spending that on free hosting is just not sustainable.
And you have to remember: even with paid hosting where you do get actual customer support, the support generally only extends to the service they provide, which is the hosting. If your site doesn’t work on their hosting, they generally will not fix that for you. They can provide guidance and point you in the right direction, but it’s still your website and your responsibility to maintain it.
I also want to share something else I wrote earlier today to someone who also said it’s our responsibility to fix their site:
We regularly update server configuration to improve server performance, improve software compatibility, or just add additional features. But running any IT system also involves having to do regular software updates, which has the risk of breaking things for users.
Also, like I said:
In other words: this specific upgrade will actually enhance many sites by opening up the ability install new(er) software!
Like I said, you can’t please everyone. It’s very clear that you’re not pleased, and I fully understand why. But I still fully stand behind this upgrade.
Please remember that when your website worked, it was hosted, and you didn’t pay for anything, not much websites have this, I would only be able to mention 2 including Infinityfree and the second one will at one moment ask you to buy premium.
It is your sole responsibility to update your website - if you don’t, this is you who is taking the risk not to update is, and thus to have it broken, the host does not change at all (that new PHP update is compatible). Additionally, despite you do disagree with this, as I can read, this is an update that probably fixed issues for a lot of websites, and it didn’t break yours, the fact you haven’t updated your website did.
You can do exactly the same thing anywhere else → Install a template → The company releases an update → Your site breaks because it is outdated.
However there is no “Fix everything” magic button, that would be great if that existed, but this is not how reality is, fixes goes with debug, with researches, and this is your responsibility to do this because this is your website and this was your decision to host it there. In that specific case, you don’t even need to do that, you just have to do an upgrade and that’s it, your website will be “fixed”.
If I may give you an advice, toxicity wouldn’t resolve anything either, if you could perhaps specify the error you encounter, and tell us what did you find related to this issue and that you do have an issue with upgrade, then perhaps your website will be fixed faster. The most you speak about it, the more time you lose, and as I checked, you mentioned you didn’t want to waste time.
Yes, of course you do… You know that you have broken our sites with your update… That is why you say you understand, because you are guilty of everything I said you did… Like I said, our sites worked fine before the update, and now they do not, you know it, and I know it… I am a massive believer in Karma here in the UK… What you have done to our websites is wrong… Again, I think you know it… Some Klique members say just update Joomla, like they think the person that created these legacy sites for a non - profit organisation is still alive on this planet…Insensitive Klique members are what they are I have seen first hand they way they treat people with brain tumours who dare to speak a different language, the Klique doesn’t have time for a translator… I am more than happy if a Klique ringleader wants to try and organise a boycott of my threads such as the one mentioned… My threads have always been aimed at accountable Infinity Free employees anyway, I would rather they stay off them…
Again, thanks for breaking our sites, I just hope that this dubious update is put on hold so some of our other sites are not broken moving forward… yes some damage is being done to sites, it would be foolish in the extreme to carry on and break more knowing the damage it has done thus far.If that was to happen then people would know it is malicious, as the people had been warned of the damage the update was doing and then proceeded…
