Change in service: PHP 7.4 End of Life

What is happening? PHP 7.4 is reaching End of Life this November.   To avoid conflicts with the Drupal 7 migration efforts happening in parallel on campus, OIT Web Hosting will be ending support for PHP 7.4 on Plesk Hosting on Feb 28, 2023.   All sites will be required to be on PHP 8.0 or higher by the end of February 2023.   As part of our annual PHP End of Life process, we will be making the following changes:

1. On Feb 2, 6PM: all sites still running on PHP 7.4 will be mass-upgraded to PHP 8.0.
2. On Feb 28, 6PM: PHP 7.4 will be completely removed from the servers.

We will also be sending regular, monthly reminders on these changes.   Who is affected? If you are a site owner with site(s) on Plesk Hosting using PHP 7.4, you are affected by this change.   What do you need to do? PHP 8.0 represents a new major version, with some big changes from PHP 7.4. We strongly recommend upgrading your site(s) to PHP 8.0+ to test for issues before the mass upgrade on Feb 2.   If your site encounters issues on PHP 8.0+, you will be able to downgrade back to PHP 7.4 up until PHP 7.4 is fully removed from the servers on Feb 28.
What if you have questions?

Common questions:

• Is there a guide about the changes between PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.0?
  • Yes, review the official PHP.net migration guide about moving to PHP 8.0 from PHP 7.4.
• How do I change the PHP version that my site is using, to upgrade or downgrade versions?
  • Check out our KB article on how to change your site's PHP version.

 

For owners of Drupal 7 sites:

Drupal 7 is no longer supported by campus, and many Drupal 7 modules are not compatible with PHP 8.0+.   Plan on migrating away from Drupal 7 now: learn more about whether Drupal 9+ will be the right CMS for your site, and explore the Sites@GeorgiaTech service as an alternative hosting option for sites.