Changing PHP version once uploaded to server from localhost

  • Resolved SunnyOz

    (@sunnyoz)


    5 years, 2 months ago

    I am currently developing a wordpress website on localhost with Xampp. My Xampp version is very old and has a php version of 5.6.3 .

    I wanted to update my site to use the latest version of wordpress, but I get this message: “You cannot update because WordPress 5.3.2 requires PHP version 5.6.20 or higher.”

    I really don’t want to update or re-install my Xampp version at this point.

    My question is.. once I upload the WordPress website to my online server.. am I also uploading my old version of PHP with the website & database files? Or does WordPress take the PHP from what the server provides.. so that I can request my server to provide a more recent version of PHP (ie: 7.0). And what do I need to do to link up the newer PHP version for my website to use?

    I just checked the dashboard on one of my other WordPress sites on this server.. and it looks like they use an even older version of PHP – 5.3.29.

    If I choose a newer version like 7, is there any prep I need to do to the site before hand? And would there be any issue with dropping back to an older version if I have problems running on PHP 7?

    Thanks for any suggestions. (Sorry, I know these are probably very basic questions!)

    Cheers,
    SunnyOz

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • When you move the site, it will be only the site files and database. The server takes care of PHP, MySQL, etc, so you don’t need to worrya bout that side of things. In your case I would suggest that the best thing to do is get it transferred across and working and then look at updating PHP.

    Dpeending on the server you get, you could have the ability tochoose PH versions in the hosting control panel. cPanel has that option built-in, and I’m assuming that a lot of others do too. If not your hosting company should be able to help, mainly because anything less then PHP 5.6 is horribly old, unsupported and should be upgraded straight away!

    Thread Starter SunnyOz

    (@sunnyoz)

    Thank you very much @catacaustic for your quick reply. I just checked my server, and I can change the php version via my control panel. They have options for 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 & 7.

    Is there any problem with changing the version to 7, and if there are functional issues with my WordPress site, changing it back to the older version (ie: 5.3)? Is there any prep before hand needed on the site? Or on the server? Or can you just flip back and forth between versions if you are testing fixes (if they are necessary due to the newer version)?

    Thanks again.

    Cheers,
    SunnyOz

    If it was me, I’d set it up, then switch to 7 and see if anything goes wrong. There’s a pretty good chance that it will be OK, but you can switch back if it all does go too far wrong.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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