PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Lael ... -
Number of replies: 13
What do people think?
Are there advantages to upgrading from 5.2 to 5.3? Is it likely to cause stability issues with core or modules?
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In reply to Lael ...

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Ben Bowler -
Hey,

Generally speaking I don't upgrade unless;
  • The update contains security fixes.
  • The version I'm using is no longer supported.
  • There are new feature I want/need.
In the case of PHP 5.3 (http://php.net/releases/5_3_0.php);
  • There are no security fixes.
  • 5.2 is very much supported.
  • The features/bug fixes don't out way the upgrade hassle.
It's a fairly personal thing, I know admins who upgrade asap and others who don't upgrade until it breaks, but if you're using 5.2 I wouldn't bother.

Ben
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Lael ...

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Jon Witts -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
The last I read ( http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=129528#p567297 ) Moodle 1.9.5 was incompatible with PHP 5.3...
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In reply to Jon Witts

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Lael ... -
interesting - thanks Jon!

If you look at the 'progress towards' 1.9.6 on tracker there are a number of issues to fix for php5.3 compatibility.

Ben - your method is very sensible smile normally I do the same, but as I am looking at a security update... I was wondering if I might as well make the jump... the answer is clearly 'not yet'... maybe in the future - but the benefits seem unclear at this point (at least to me).
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In reply to Lael ...

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Andrew Osiname -

Yep it looks like a good way to determine whether or not to upgrade. Thanks Ben

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In reply to Jon Witts

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Andrew Osiname -

We have PHP5.2.x and Moodle 1.9.x running live (all is well -it seems) and on the test server, we have PHP 5.3.2 and the same Moodle 1.9.x and I receive:

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\course\modedit.php on line 187 Strict Standards: Creating default object from empty value in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\config.php on line 5

everytime i try and edit a topic.

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In reply to Andrew Osiname

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Well, turn off Debugging on your production server. Deprecated notices are a very minor thing. Nothing is broken, they are just a warning that the current code probably will break in some future version of PHP. Which does not matter to you running your Moodle site now.

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In reply to Lael ...

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Chad Outten -

for what it's worth php.net announced that it has ended support for 5.2 and recommends upgrading to 5.2.3 - not to say that's in the best interest of moodlers.

http://www.php.net/archive/2010.php#id2010-12-16-1

we know the php min reqs for moodle, but perhaps somebody from the core development team can tell us what php version(s) are (not) stable and secure for moodle 1.9.x and 2.0.x?

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In reply to Chad Outten

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Marc Coyles -

Any update on this one?? Is there a version of 1.9.x that functions correctly on PHP 5.3.6?

Can't find anything clear in the changelogs for weekly builds...

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In reply to Marc Coyles

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Jon B -

I'm running 1.9.7 with php 5.3.5 on a development system (windows).  So far, a lot of warnings, but no problems.  We'd like to upgrade our production server to 5.3.5 so that we can support both 1.9.x and 2.1.x on the same server.  Has anyone found any problems with Moodle 1.9.x and php 5.3.5?

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In reply to Jon B

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Doug Swenson -

Jon B,

We just upgraded our development environment to PHP 5.3.5 and installed Moodle 2.1. Here is my feedback: slow as all get up. It takes 9 to 15 seconds to process a login. Everything is slow, whether entering courses, checking your profile or just hitting the front page. Any suggestions for tuning the environment? Server has 2GB of dedicated memory and passed all installation requirements.

Good news though for 1.9.9+ installs. For some reason, we are experiencing a performance increase for those installs. Especially when running reports.

Any input from anyone or different experiences?

Doug

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In reply to Marc Coyles

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Jim Bennett -

I'm running 5.3.6 with 1.9.12 on Windows Server 2008 R2/IIS 7, with no problems at all.

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In reply to Jim Bennett

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Julian Neaum -

Hi Jim

How many concurrent users do you have, please?

We have just upgraded our W2003 server to W2008 R2 and although initial testing show no problems, now we have our students back we are suffering severe memory problems and considering a move to IIS7.

 

Environment:

W2008 R2 SP1
Apache 22.2.20
PHP 5.2.3 (running as LoadModule) - 5.2.17 waiting in the wings for cutover tonight
MySql 5.0.91
Moodle 1.9.3 

Julian

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In reply to Marc Coyles

Re: PHP 5.3? yes, no, wait?

by Stefan Nychka -

Hi.  1.9.9 is chugging along okay with php 5.3 for us.  We did have a rubrics issue (ignore if you don't use this plugin), and an email issue with forum posts (roughly and briefly, php's call to sendmail seemed to pass unrecognized parameters.  Uncertain, though, as very few others have mentioned similar issues.  It was fixed by specifying the smtp server instead.)

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