{"id":9837,"date":"2020-03-06T13:12:47","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T12:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/?p=9837"},"modified":"2020-03-06T13:12:48","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T12:12:48","slug":"update-your-php","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/update-your-php\/","title":{"rendered":"Update your PHP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 id=\"before-you-update-your-php-version\">Before you update your PHP version <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/update-php\/#before-you-update-your-php-version\"># Before you update your PHP version<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This section starts off with some warnings, but don\u2019t be afraid! As \nwith most things technical, we just need to cover some background before\n we can get to the part where you update your PHP version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Updating your PHP version should not be a problem, but we can\u2019t <em>guarantee<\/em>\n that it\u2019s not. WordPress itself works with PHP versions as far back as \n5.6.20 (we\u2019re currently recommending version 7.3, so this is <em>great<\/em>\n backward compatibility!), but we don\u2019t know if your themes or plugins \nwill work. They should, and popular or reputable ones almost certainly \nwill be, but we can\u2019t guarantee it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a couple of steps you should take to mitigate any risk before proceeding:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Make a backup of your website:<\/strong> a backup will let you revert your site to how it is right now in the event anything goes wrong. There are <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/search\/backup\/\">plenty of free backup plugins available<\/a>,\n so if you don\u2019t have a backup solution already \u2013 use one of these. In \norder to revert this backup, you\u2019ll also need your web host to move your\n PHP version back to your current version (we\u2019ll cover how to do this \nlater).<\/li><li><strong>Update WordPress, themes, and plugins:<\/strong> from your WordPress Dashboard, head to Updates, and then update all. You should do this regularly anyway.  When done, check your site is working as expected.<\/li><li><strong>Check PHP compatibility:<\/strong> install the <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/php-compatibility-checker\/\">PHP Compatibility Checker plugin<\/a>\n to check your themes and plugins for possible issues. This plugin isn\u2019t\n perfect and may miss items or flag false positives, but it does work in\n most cases.<\/li><li><strong>Fix any PHP compatibility issues:<\/strong> if the PHP \nCompatibility Checker plugin picks up any issues, get in touch with the \ntheme or plugin developer and ask them to investigate. If they can\u2019t or \nwon\u2019t get back to you, have a look for themes or plugins on <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/\">WordPress.org<\/a> with similar functionality and use one of these instead.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Run through these steps, and you\u2019ll be ready to update the PHP \nversion on your WordPress site \u2013 and enjoy all of the benefits that come\n with this!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you run into any issues whilst doing this or need help, you should\n contact a professional web developer, your hosting company, or your \ntheme and plugins authors. All of these will be happy to help here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can now get on to the final part: actually updating your website\u2019s PHP version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/update-php\/#top\">Top \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"how-to-update-your-websites-php-version-for-a-faster-more-secure-website\">How to update your website\u2019s PHP version for a faster, more secure website <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/update-php\/#how-to-update-your-websites-php-version-for-a-faster-more-secure-website\"># How to update your website\u2019s PHP version for a faster, more secure website<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019re now ready to update your website\u2019s PHP version! You\u2019ve done \ndue diligence, got backups, and are in the best possible shape to do the\n update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the PHP version is set at the server level by your hosting \ncompany, updating involves either interacting with your host\u2019s settings \nor asking them to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, exactly <em>how<\/em> to do the update depends on your hosting \ncompany. We\u2019ve asked hosting companies to submit instructions on how to \nupdate your PHP version on their hosting, and <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/WordPress\/servehappy-resources\/blob\/master\/tutorials\/hosting-specific\/tutorials-en.md\">you\u2019ll find a list of hosts who have instructions available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you can\u2019t find your host on this list, then email your hosting \ncompany and ask them to help! Here\u2019s some template text you can use:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">Dear Hosting Provider,<br><br>I want my website to be as performant and secure as<br>possible with the latest version of PHP. For the server<br>my WordPress site is hosted on, I want to ensure that<br>is the case. If I am not already on the latest version<br>of PHP, please let me know what steps I need to take<br>to update.<br><br>Thanks!<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>If you run into any issues at this stage, either change the PHP \nversion back yourself, contact your hosting company or a professional \nweb developer. In the unlikely event something goes wrong and you need \nto restore your backup, contact your host and ask them to restore the \nprevious version of PHP you had running. You can then restore your \nbackup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You should now have all the information you need to update! Nice \nwork! With an up-to-date version of PHP you\u2019ll enjoy a faster, more \nsecure website and happier visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/update-php\/#top\">Top \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"faster-more-secure-wordpress-websites-for-all\">Faster, more secure WordPress websites for all <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/update-php\/#faster-more-secure-wordpress-websites-for-all\"># Faster, more secure WordPress websites for all<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Making sure you have the latest version of PHP ensures your website is as fast, and secure as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You now have all the information you need to update to the latest \nversion of PHP, and you know how to update in the future as well. Look \nout for more PHP update messages on your WordPress Dashboard going \nforwards, or keep an eye on your hosting company\u2019s news for more \ninformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a final reminder: contact your hosting company, a professional web\n developer, or your theme and\/or plugin authors for any additional \nquestions. They\u2019ll all be able to help out with their areas of \nexpertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Thanks for making the internet a better place!<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/update-php\/\">https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/update-php\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before you update your PHP version # Before you update your PHP version This section starts off with some warnings, but don\u2019t be afraid! As with most things technical, we&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/update-your-php\/\" class=\"apace-readmore-link\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9839,"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9837\/revisions\/9839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vivesur.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}