Thread

Hello,

At our agency we have dozens of sites running multiple versions of EE from 1.6.x to 2.5.2. In the EE 2.5.3 release announcement there was a reminder about the changes to server requirements.

Again, we’d like to remind you that with the next major release, 2.6, ExpressionEngine will be increasing its server requirements to PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.3.

Currently our server is running php 5.2.17 and MySQL 5.0.92 so we clearly need to upgrade php in order to continue building new sites. The question I have is if there is any information about older versions of EE being incompatible with the newer version of php. i.e. will upgrading php break our sites.

It’s not feasible to upgrade all of our sites at this time (though I wish it were). If I know ahead of time which versions will be impacted by this upgrade then we will be able to upgrade those sites that need it.

please advise.

Hi LMA,

While it’s a good idea to keep your servers on recent versions of PHP and MySQL, do note that your server will actually meet the upcoming server requirements for EE. We don’t have information available as to what the maximum version PHP and MySQL was supported for back versions of EE 1 or EE 2 other than this: you’ll need to upgrade any sites running EE 1 to the latest (EE 1.7.3) for compatibility with PHP 5.3.

When we’re testing a release for EE, we’re testing it with PHP and MySQL versions ranging from the current minimum requirements all the way up through the most widely available public releases. While we might not make use of the features of the most recent versions of PHP, generally speaking new versions of PHP don’t tend to break EE.

Since you’re server meets the new minimum requirements, however, you should be good for now. You’ll have enough time to slowly make sure all your clients’ sites are upgraded to the latest EE 1 or EE 2, and that’ll ensure your sites continue smooth operation even after you upgrade your servers to PHP 5.3.

Does that help?