UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads Version 7/8 Support Upgrade to UBB 8.0.0 Good - BUT PHP 7.4 > 8.0 Issues

First, thanks to everyone who created the UBB 8.0.0. UBB has been powering our community since 1998 and we are happy to continue using it.

Log of Today's Upgrade to UBB 8.0.0:

1. Started with UBB 7.7.5 running on PHP 7.4.33.

2. Did the upgrade to UBB 8.0.0. All went well, though the script told me that credits.md was missing, so I uploaded it manually.

3. Upgrade to 8.8.0 completed without error. Forum was running well.

4. Then, I decided to upgrade from PHP 7.4.33 to 8.1. Main page came up but the control panel was a white screen.

Checked the error log and found (this the latest of many this afternoon):

[06-Sep-2024 19:35:16 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function mb_convert_case() in /home/byzcatho/public_html/forums/libs/ubbthreads.inc.php:1227
Stack trace:
#0 /home/byzcatho/public_html/forums/scripts/showflat.inc.php(586): make_ubb_url()
#1 /home/byzcatho/public_html/forums/ubbthreads.php(286): page_showflat_run()
#2 {main}
thrown in /home/byzcatho/public_html/forums/libs/ubbthreads.inc.php on line 1227

5. Checked this forum and found Update to 7.6; mb_convert_case fatal error. In the discussion Gizmo had mentioned that mb_convert_case() is not always enabled by default.

6. Contacted the web host and asked about it and they replied "we could see that the mbstring extension is already enabled for PHP 8.1 on the domain byzcath.org. This means that the function mb_convert_case() should be available, and any issues related to it not being found should not be attributed to the absence of this extension." They went on to say that it's probably a UBB error.

7. I decided to go back to PHP 7.4. When I went into the "MultiPHP Manager" I found that PHP 8.2 was available (lol - the versions are not in order from lowest to highest in the dropdown and I missed it). So I tried that and received the same error.

8 Eventually, I set it back to PHP 7.4 and my UBB Forum is running again. Currently our forum is working and I made a successful test post. To be safe, I have kept the forum closed.

What's next?

Thanks!

Jake

Clearly it's missing from your PHP install as that error of a missing module is in your log file... You could make a simple PHP test file that just checks for the presence of the PHP extension and reply to the host

Thanks for the quick reply, Gizmo!

I don't know PHP, but with the help of Microsoft Bing's AI I managed this:

<?php
// Check if the mbstring extension is loaded
if (!extension_loaded('mbstring')) {
echo "The mbstring extension is not loaded.\n";
exit;
}

// Test the mb_convert_case function
$test_string = "hello world!";
$converted_string = mb_convert_case($test_string, MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8");

echo "Original string: $test_string\n";
echo "Converted string: $converted_string\n";
?>

Since I'm back to PHP 7.4, I ran it in my browser and this was the result:

Original string: hello world! Converted string: Hello World! [I did NOT get "The mbstring extension is not loaded.]

Then I set it to PHP 8.1 and ran the script again from the browser and received the same result above.

Changed to PHP 8.2 and got the same result as above (but my Joomla 4.4.3 site erred out, so I much have an extension there that doesn't yet work with PHP 8.2).

Changed back to PHP 8.1. Checked my UBB Forum, front end ok (could post a test post, even though closed). Control Panel still white screened.

is it just the dashboard, or are you unable to reach other other pages as well?

for example
https:// YOURSITE .com /forums/admin/phpinfo.php

Do you have a .htaccess file in your /forums/ or /forums/admin directories? Do they have anything like this

I never thought of checking that.

phpinfo.php loads normally.

From there I can click into each of the menu items on the left EXCEPT dashboard.php.

I compared the file sizes and one from the zip was 13,381 and the one one the server was 13,304. Since the rest of the php files had identical file sized I wondered about, so I renamed the one on the server and re-uploaded the one from zip file. When I clicked on the control panel link I still got a white screen and the filesize for the one on the server changed to 13,304. I don't know if that means anything. Permissions are 0644 and Owner/Group are 1099 1102 (just like the rest of the files). Checked error log and still as reported in my first post.

If it's the one page it's 99% likely its a corrupt admin cookie (its been the main issue with upgrades), try clearing your browser cookies then going back to the dashboard page.

I do NOT have a .htaccess file in the /forums/ or /forums/admin directories.

Clearing the browser cookies did it!

The site is running at UBB 8.0.0 and PHP 8.1.

Gizmo, you're a genius! Thanks!

Evidently we need to add a disclaimer about corrupt cookies lol... Glad you're up and running Jake.

Now... can you explain how corrupted cookies in my browser created the error I reported above?

I backed up and then deleted the error log and did a few test posts. No new error log was created.

Its the ",,,,,,,,,,," in the cookie, generally from switching themes or from having NULL new users in the queue instead of 0, is causing a php8 error, so the page doesn't display when its checking for admin permissions on the dashboard.

Once you clear the cookie, or re-login, it sets the correct cookie data. We'll likely set the upgrade utility to clear the site cookies once an upgrade is completed.

exactly as Gizmo wrote. expanding on that -
its not so much that the cookie itself was corrupt. but more so that the data inside the cookie was corrupt. such as storing some dashboard data in the cookie file so it does not need to be regenerated at every visit. total users, new users, users last week, etc. the corruption may a ",,,,,," instead of the intended "0,0,0,0" to the cookie file. NULL or EMPTY variables instead of the count of "0"