Latest upgrade causes WordPress Fatal Error

  • The new update to the EntryWizzard plugin causes a fatal error on the Brant Camera Club website.

    I received an automated email with the error information. I was able to use a recovery mode to check the site. All plugins and themes are up to date.

    Here is the email I received:

    Howdy!

Since WordPress 5.2 there is a built-in feature that detects when a plugin or theme causes a fatal error on your site, and notifies you with this automated email.

In this case, WordPress caught an error with one of your plugins, EntryWizard.

First, visit your website (https://brantcam.mywhc.ca/bcc-wp/) and check for any visible issues. Next, visit the page where the error was caught (https://brantcam.mywhc.ca/bcc-wp/bcc-wp/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fbrantcam.mywhc.ca%2Fbcc-wp%2F2019%2F11%2F06%2Fnov-05-meeting-announcements%2F) and check for any visible issues.

Please contact your host for assistance with investigating this issue further.

If your site appears broken and you can't access your dashboard normally, WordPress now has a special "recovery mode". This lets you safely login to your dashboard and investigate further.

https://brantcam.mywhc.ca/bcc-wp/wp-login.php?action=enter_recovery_mode&rm_token=QWdVrcEq5DTPgcPnKK2W63&rm_key=LEnCjjb1YJiU9eTp2uOMTe

To keep your site safe, this link will expire in 1 day. Don't worry about that, though: a new link will be emailed to you if the error occurs again after it expires.

When seeking help with this issue, you may be asked for some of the following information:
WordPress version 5.8.2
Current theme: Twenty Eleven (version 3.9)
Current plugin: EntryWizard (version 1.3.21)
PHP version 7.2.34

Error Details
=============
An error of type E_PARSE was caused in line 8 of the file /home/brantcam/public_html/bcc-wp/wp-content/plugins/entrywizard/classes/validation/ewz-upload-input.php. Error message: syntax error, unexpected 'Ewz_Layout' (T_STRING), expecting function (T_FUNCTION) or const (T_CONST)
Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Plugin Author Josie Stauffer

    (@joanne123)

    I’m pretty much baffled at the moment, but I heard of one other case where this happened, so it’s not just a one-off.
    The possibilities I can think of now (there may well be others I haven’t thought of yet) would be:

    A file permissions issue: make sure all the .php files in the entrywizard folder are readable by whatever user is running the webserver (in ftp, the permissions should probably be “-rw-r–r–“. At least they should look the same as php files for other plugins).
    a PHP version incompatibility
    a plugin conflict.

    You can check for plugin conflicts by deactivating any other plugin that was updated at the same time and see if that has any effect.

    PHP version issues could take me a while to figure out, so you’d be better off to go back to the previous version for the moment. WordPress used to have a way to do that, but now it seems to have been moved to a plugin called WP Rollback, which looks very easy to use.

    There were no database changes, so you should be quite safe to use WP Rollback to go back to the last version.

    If you find out what happened, please let me know.

    Plugin Author Josie Stauffer

    (@joanne123)

    An upgrade to PHP 7.4 fixed this issue.

    So php 7.4 is the minimum to use the latest EWZ version?

    I also noticed this warning in the dashboard: “Updates are not advised while a webform is open for uploads.” Is this just for update to 1.3.21? I didn’t notice this before. So I should close any open ones before update, right?

    Plugin Author Josie Stauffer

    (@joanne123)

    Yes, I’m afraid the latest version of ewz seems to fail with earlier versions of php.

    This was not intentional, but since 7.4 is now what wordpress recommends, I’m not giving high priority to tracking down and changing whatever it was that requires 7.4

    Generally speaking, I have always advised not doing updates while uploading or judging might be in progress, so yes, it would be safer to close open webforms (and rating forms if you use ewz-rating).

    Josie,
    Thanks for the clarifications. I just recently updated php to 7.4 so I hope not to encounter any issue with ewz update. I hope I don’t need to revert back to a lower version for other reasons.
    I must be lucky for not closing webforms and rating forms while updating ewz in the past. I’ll pay more attention this that next time. I wonder what would be the consequence if users are doing upload or doing judging when I do ewz update?

    Plugin Author Josie Stauffer

    (@joanne123)

    There most likely would not be any consequences — I just couldn’t guarantee it.

    Got it, thanks.

    A bit more on this.
    EntryWizard now requires php7.4. As far as I can see from other plugins, this is unusually high. If EntryWizard is active and the site tries to run under an earlier php version, the site crashes because of a version check in EntryWizard. If EntryWizard is inactive under eg, php7.3, EntryWizard cannot be activated.
    My hosting provider only certifies its php installation up to php7.3 but they have an uncertified version of php7.4. I have to provide an AddHandler directive in .htaccess to use php7.4.
    Running php7.4, I then had a critical error with the WordPress update to 5.8.3 which the provider admits is probably down to its php7.4 configuration.
    My workaround was: Under php7.4, deactivate EntryWizard; revert to php7.3; update WordPress to 5.8.3; set the site back to php7.4; reactivate EntryWizard. A long way round, but does EntryWizard actually require php7.4 ?

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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