Ninja Forms Version: 3.0.21

I am now also hosed with my WP site with the following parse/syntax error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in C:\Program Files (x86)\Ampps\www\redshiftconsultinginchiftconsultinginc.com\wp-content\plugins\ninja-forms\deprecated\includes\fields\recaptcha.php on line 57

Obviously, I’m running AMPPS on Windows but less obvious is that I just updated to WP 4.7.1 (successfully) and right after I updated the Ninja Forms version to this latest one, then I started getting these errors on all pages OTHER THAN my home page – https://www.redshiftconsultinginc.com/

I would like to see if someone can tell me exactly what line of code to amend but barring that I guess I’ll just have to delete the new Ninja Forms plugin directory and revert to an old one.

Don’t delete your Ninja Forms folder, just temporarily rename it. Then, log back into your WP website view the plugins directory, which will give you a warning and then log back out. Next reset the Ninja forms folder to it’s original name and try logging in again. This worked for me on several WP 4.7 sites. Not sure if it’ll work now that you’ve updated to 4.7.1.

You can also try contacting Ninja Forms here: https://ninjaforms.com/contact/

Support is usually pretty good, even for the free version.

Good luck!

I just had the same problem. Until there’s an official solution, I’ve edited line 57 of /wp-content/plugins/ninja-forms/deprecated/includes/fields changing ['ninja-forms-display'] ); to 'ninja-forms-display' );. It’s working for me now…

That bad thing is this is not unusual and I should have known better than to upgrade right away. Fortunately, my installs seem to be fine now. I totally understand that problems might arise with major updates, but this is a maintenance release. Ninja Forms quality control needs to be doing a MUCH better job.

Ricardo: That did the trick! Thank you!

Idealynx: I have a feeling that your approach may have worked as well but I went with Ricardo’s because I use to do a lot of PHP coding and Ricardo’s code “fix” seemed immediately correct and sure enough it was! ??

Sounds good. I’m not very proficient with PHP, so can you or Ricardo enlighten me as to what that code actually did?

Well, the erroneous code, that is, the square brackets ([ and ]), implied the passing of an array to the “ninja_forms_field_recaptcha_display” function. My guess is that “ninja-forms-display” is simply a variable and NOT an array.

@ricardo BRGWeb

Your solution worker for me too, thanks

@dlcotajr, if that’s the case that seems like a pretty big oversight by the developer. ??

Hey,

Thanks for the detailed report.

The problem is that the developer who submitted that request used shorthand Array notation, which isn’t available in versions of PHP < 5.4. Our automated testing doesn’t run in 5.3, so that’s how this was missed when the request was merged.

I’m about to release version 3.0.22 to take care of this issue. I’ve also made a note to improve our automated testing to include version 5.2 and 5.3 of PHP. I would say, though, that if your host uses version 5.3 of PHP, you should ask them to upgrade to a more secure version.

Kevin,

Thanks for your prompt response. Just an FYI that I’m using GoDaddy shared hosting for (4) WordPress websites using PHP version 5.6, and every one of them failed to update properly, save the WordPress website that was already updated to WP 4.7.1.

Given your analysis, are you sure that the PHP version is the issue?

Hey,

If your update error was:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in …\wp-content\plugins\ninja-forms\deprecated\includes\fields\recaptcha.php on line 57

Then it was definitely a PHP issue. As I said, it’s because of the array shorthand [] instead of array().

If you didn’t see this error, then it’s likely there’s something else going on with your install. If you can be more specific with any errors you are seeing, I’ll be more than happy to do more troubleshooting.

Does 3.0.22 have the same issue for you?

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for checking in and sorry for the delayed response. (In addition to blowing up my web site on occasion I also run a small IT consulting company in the California Bay Area and I get a little crazy busy sometimes! :-))

Yes, this was the exact parse error (see the second post way up above) and, yes, my version of PHP (v5.3) did NOT like the shorthand array notation and, yes, at some point I need to upgrade my version of PHP running on the server. And the last “yes” here is that yes the 3.0.22 release did indeed modify the code such that the array notation now works with my 5.3 version of PHP so we are all good!

Thank you and EVERYONE on this thread!

Danny

Hi Kevin,

I actually discovered that this was some other issue, albeit still related to some iteration of a Ninja Forms update, that seems to have affected two WordPress sites. The 3.0.22 release fixed the WordPress 4.7 sites, but not the two that had already been updated to 4.7.1. I successfully rolled back one install to a previous version of Ninja Forms, release 3.0.20, but I’m afraid to attempt another upgrade until my backup system has had a chance to backup the currently working version, which will happen later tonight.

Quite frankly, there are only two plugins that I routinely use that have managed to consistently wreak disaster on my WordPress websites and that is Ninja Forms and Wordfence. The update process is pretty straightforward, but if there’s a formal process I need to follow, please enlighten me. Thanks!