Hello,

I am having a user error moment I am sure. I recently upgraded the entire forum after the old version (I'd been using for years) stop loading when my hoster changed the PHP version to 7.3.

So, I thought upgrading the forum to the latest version would help and it did, loads perfectly now. But I have run into a problem with the Private Message add-on I bought years ago. I thought maybe I needed to upgrade that as well, so I purchased the latest version.

I tried to follow the instructions, went through them several times to make sure I did not miss anything. It works fine, just as it did on the old forum. 'Except' when I try to delete a message, it refreshes to a blank white screen. I have to hit the back button to see that it did delete. However, it doesn't reload/push me to the PM section after the deletion as it used to, but goes to that blank white page.

Any idea what I have done wrong? I hope I have explained things clearly.

Thank you.

Pari
I was able to resolve this. So please delete my original post. Thank you.

Pari
Would be great to know how you solved it and what was the reason... if possible, please post here.

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately, I just could not figure out why it wasn't working. I did a fresh reinstall of a new forum with the most recent version and reinstall the PM add-on. Still whenever I try to delete a message it would return me to a white screen (index.php?).

But it would complete the task when I'd go back to check the message was deleted.

I just could not figure it so, I had to put back up my old minibb forum (miniBB version 2.4.1). And to resolve the http 500 error I was getting after the php version was changed to 7.3 (which was the reason for all of this, my host told me it was an issue with the forum script, and I should upgrade the forum). As a workaround I've put the old forum on it's own domain/directory and have it still running with the old PHP version 5.6.

If you have any idea on how to get the old forum to run on PHP version 7.3 (and higher) or how I can run the PM add-on on the upgraded board, I'd appreciate it. For now I am just making due with what I have. :)

Thanks,
Pari

Thank you for getting back to us.

At first, running on PHP 7.3 in many cases supposes that you should convert your database to the 'utf8mb4' character set. While working now on the next miniBB release, I don't have exact examples on hand on how to do it for older databases, but you may check a related thread where we have collected something which already works. Doing it simply, you should go through each 'text' or 'varchar' column in database and update it like:

substitute 'table_name', 'column_name' and 'column_type' to the proper values you run.

This is not an obligate step, but recommended, since on many configurations on the newer PHP and mySQL/MariaDB versions it could run out of time.

Another weak point of the current miniBB vs. PHP 7.x is that is still contains the function named 'get_magic_quotes_gpc' in its codes. This function should be removed from all codes, and the codes properly updated for its replacement. Despite the PHP manual says that This function has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 7.4.0, when trying it out on PHP 7.3 I still got quite bad results.

So I must say, regarding those 2 points above, miniBB 3.4.2 is not quite ready for the PHP 7.3 or 7.4. Not upgrading it now is the most proper step. Despite I was having plans to change the auth module and introduce many other new things, now I see the more polite would be to release the fixes for the newer PHP versions to make it at least compatible and then work out on the new things of miniBB 4.0. I will take my time in the next couple of weeks for this.

That's about the upgrading... but obviously, the blank screen you see on deleting the PMs could be related to some PHP error which you don't see on the screen, 'cause you have all errors turned off from displaying. If you have access to PHP or server logs, you could discover the nature of the error. It still could be related to the 'get_magic_quotes_gpc' I've mentioned: PHP stops as it couldn't find the existing function. But it also could be an error related strictly to your forum only. Hard to tell...

PHP 5.6 is quite a stable release and you could live with it for quite a long time, whereas PHP 7.x are releases often incompatible with the older codes.

I could inform you when miniBB 3.4.3 is released. Or just follow our Tidings section. Sorry for the temporarily inconvenience!

Paul
Thank you, Paul!! You just provided me with more information on what the issue is and how I might fix it. More than I was able to find during days of searching the net. I greatly appreciate it. I will definitely follow the Tidings section for the new release.