OneAt the end of November, the first stable version of PHP 8.0.0, also intended for production environments, was released. Since PHP 7.3 lost support a few days ago and 7.4 will lose support in November next year, it’s ideal to think about upgrading to the latest release. It brings a lot of new features for programmers. David Grudl writes a nice technical summary on his blog . How does the PHP 8 update affect WordPress users?
Updating WordPress to 5.6
Since WordPress declares that “beta compatible” with PHP 8 is only its version 5.6, I recommend updating WordPress itself to 5.6 before updating PHP to version 8 itself.
If your WordPress has not already automatically updated to version 5.6, update by manual confirmation – in the left menu in the section: Message board -> Update.
Always remember to make a backup before every WordPress update . You can either rely on the backups of your hosting, or back up the database and the folder with the template + plugins manually, via FTP. Another option is to use a complete plugin for backup, but we’ll talk about that some other time.
After a short WordPress update, I recommend updating all plugins as well. In any case, with common sense, so that your entire website does not fall apart. Read the changelog before each update.
PHP 8 support on your hosting
First, I recommend finding out if your hosting allows you to change the PHP version. Every good hosting should enable this in its administration and, of israel phone number data course, always offer the latest version of PHP. CZECHIA.COM web hosting is a verified hosting that can both switch PHP versions and keep up with PHP version innovations. Information on deploying the latest version of PHP in the Czech Republic is available here.
Change to PHP 8 and testing
Now it’s time to change the PHP version on your hosting. Confirm the version change to PHP 8 (or ask support), and after making the changes, start a simple test.
Check your WordPress admin for any errors popping up fully trust that this research anywhere. Verify that the website is really running with the new PHP version. You can do this in two ways – via the tab: Tools -> Site status , where you then select the tab: Information in the top menu and examine the Server . An easier way is to install a PHP version detection plugin . Then deactivate or delete it.
Then visually test whether the public part of the website is cmo email list working properly. Verify the display of the main page, article detail, category, or try the search.
I haven’t encountered any problems when updating dozens of WordPress sites to PHP 8, so I believe that the update will go smoothly for you as well.