About two years ago I switched my web host to HostGator. HostGator is really cheap initially, so I got a 3-year intro deal that was pretty amazing for essentially unlimited shared web hosting. It was unlimited enough that even Jeb got in on it and we host under the same account now.
It had been over a year since I had last updated the Mediawiki software that runs the Flashlight Wiki and Mediawiki makes it a pain to do an update by having to manually copy files, updates extensions and skins, and maybe update the main configuration file (whereas with WordPress you just push a button in the dashboard). So I was running version 1.30 of Mediawiki and now they had released 1.34. I downloaded 1.34, figured out which extensions I needed that weren’t included in the standard installation, downloaded those, pared down the skins that didn’t seem to be supported anymore and then copied over my images and settings file. Tried it out and it said Mediawiki requires PHP version 7.2.9 and I was running 7.1. PHP is something installed by the webhost, not the end user, so that means HostGator. In my HostGator control panel, I can choose which version of PHP I want to run, but my only choices were the default of 5.6 or 7.0 or 7.1. Their technical support information said you should be able to choose 7.2, but I didn’t see that as a pick.
I wound up getting on their technical support chat to see what I could do. They said that it can be a problem upgrading PHP because it could cause some websites to break. I said I wanted to try it and that I needed at least 7.2.9. They picked 7.3 just to be safe. At first Mediawiki gave me the same error, but I think maybe they had to restart their Apache server? Not much later I got a new error messages saying a bunch of PHP extensions were needed by Mediawiki and were not available. These aren’t Mediawiki extensions, which are problematic enough, but PHP extensions, which, again, are controlled by HostGator. The support person said they would be able to enable all but one of the maybe six listed missing extensions I needed to make Mediawiki run. PHP 7.2.9 was released over a year ago and the version of Mediawiki that requires it was released over three months ago. So this isn’t really cutting edge stuff I need though I certainly question why Mediawiki would choose to require a version of PHP that isn’t supported on a popular host like HostGator. The person on the chat said they would have to escalate the issue to senior admins at HostGator and they could offer no more help and I would be notified by email when the problem was addressed. Meanwhile, if I tried to revert to the old Mediawiki version, that was now broken as well since it needed several PHP extensions that weren’t available either.
After about an hour of waiting to hear from the senior admins, while Flashlight Wiki was broken and giving an error message about PHP extensions to any visitors, I did another chat to get revert PHP on my site back to 7.1 so that the old installation would run again. They said they might not be able to do that without submitting a ticket, but after a while, they were able to get PHP 7.2.26 running and this seemed to work with the old Mediawiki installation. But for some reason, the new installation (which I never actually got working, so there could very well be problems with the update as I deployed it) which only needed 7.2.9 still wouldn’t run because of its list of PHP extensions. That is very vexing because the old version needed all but one of those extensions too and it seemed to run just fine.
So after all of that I still have the old version of Mediawiki running and still haven’t heard from HostGator’s senior admins. It is Easter, so they shouldn’t have to be working today and I was surprised they were working yesterday honestly. But I am also surprised that a big hosting company would even have issues running the latest Mediawiki software. I don’t understand any of the issues involved really, just that it doesn’t seem like it is something I have control over or can fix on my own.
Got an email from the senior admin at Hostgator. He said he couldn’t replicate the problem and the website seemed to be running fine. He did not get a good rating on the satisfaction survey. The chat log had all of the PHP extensions that needed to be enabled.
I think I will try this again. Four months later, HostGator now lets me choose different PHP versions for each domain hosted, up to 7.4 (not sure about extensions), currently all set to 5.6. Meanwhile MediaWiki is up to 1.34.2, which still requires PHP 7.2.9 or above, so theoretically it could work and I won’t need support to switch back and forth if it doesn’t.
I ran into the same/similar issue, but found a way to get it working (in case you are still having issues with it, or anyone else looking for the solution). I had changed PHP version to ea-php73, and mediawiki 1.35.0 reported that 6 modules needed to be installed. I checked php info but uploading a simple file to my website (like this https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Php.ini) and then visiting that page on my website. I saw that the necessary modules were already enabled in the configuration, so that seemed to check out just fine.
In my case, I was using a subdomain, and it turned out there were other higher level folders (public_html and even the parent folder above that) which had .htaccess files pointing to an older version of PHP. Following Hostgator instructions here: https://www.hostgator.com/help/article/how-to-fix-error-after-multiphp-update I was able to comment out those lines in the .htaccess files and it started working.
I also changed all my domains to the same PHP version; don’t know if that made a difference or not. Hope this helps.