PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Cannot increment/decrement string offsets in /home/billvv/public_html/genealogy/genlib.php:472

[billvv]

I have been using VNG since installing V10.1.1 a number of years ago, and it has been working (great!) until sometime in the few months (I don't visit it often in the summer). I now see that it is failing to show the info panel when a link is selected from the home page. vanvlack.org/genealogy.  I am seeing the following entry in the error.log...

[01-Nov-2019 01:09:17 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Cannot increment/decrement string offsets in /home/billvv/public_html/genealogy/genlib.php:472 Stack trace: #0 /home/billvv/public_html/genealogy/genlib.php(769): tng_getLeftIcons() #1 /home/billvv/public_html/genealogy/genlib.php(155): tng_icons(1, 'Relationship Ca...') #2 /home/billvv/public_html/genealogy/relateform.php(43): tng_header('Relationship Ca...', Array) #3 {main} thrown in /home/billvv/public_html/genealogy/genlib.php on line 472  

[theKiwi]

The first place to look might be that your hosting company has upgraded the version of PHP that your site is running on that is causing this now?

If they've upgraded to PHP versions like 7.2, then it's possible that TNG 10.1.3 now won't work with that.

Roger

[billvv]

It is GoDaddy, PHP Version 7.1

[Newfloridian]

Hi Bill

You basically have three choices:

1. (Probably the TNG choice) Upgrade to the latest version of TNG. It has been progressively updated since TNG 11 to take care of warnings and errors each of the several upgrades to PHP has created.

2. (Maybe the simplest). If you don't want to move, ask your ISP if they can revert you to back PHP 5.6 (which should work with TNG 10.1) 

As an alternative, if you are on a system with cPanel, have a look for MultiPHP Manager (or a name similar) which would allow you to do it yourself. My own offers the choice  in 9 steps from PHP 5.2 to PHP 7.3 although that carries a warning that PHP versions 5.45, 5.5, 5.6 and 7.0 are deprecated - meaning no support and may be withdrawn from the server at any time.

3. If you know what you are doing, you could always edit your version of TNG to use PHP 7.2  That's the route I took. I still use TNG 10.1.3 and now have it running on the server with PHP 7.2 and on Wampserver with PHP 7.3. It is time consuming, quite repetitive and rather tedious.

Be advised, TNG 7.4 is on the cards. PHP 8 might (or might not) be around the corner. Each upgrade causes a whole new raft of warnings and errors. Makes me wonder sometimes how this package got out onto general release in the first place if it was so flaky or bug ridden

Alan

[billvv]

SOLVED: Changed to PHP V5.6 and am now seeing content. Thanks for your help and detailed explanation. Newfloridian!