Support

Hi Nicholas
Description of my issue:
My site ran on PHP5.3 and the clean build I have restored it onto is using the latest PHP5.5 - I am not sure how to revert it back to PHP5.3

Backup works fine however site launches and appears ok until I try and login (front or back end).
When I configure Public debugging, I get:

Notice: Use of undefined constant MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256 - assumed 'MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256' in /home/pwa/public_html/libraries/fof/encrypt/aes.php on line 44
Notice: Use of undefined constant MCRYPT_MODE_CBC - assumed 'MCRYPT_MODE_CBC' in /home/pwa/public_html/libraries/fof/encrypt/aes.php on line 63
Fatal error: Call to undefined function mcrypt_get_iv_size() in /home/pwa/public_html/libraries/fof/encrypt/aes.php on line 144

So I guess this is an issue around PHP 5.5 vs PHP 5.3

I have disabled 2factor authentication by renaming the plugins/system/admintools/admintools/main.php and
I have renamed the /.htaccess
I have added extension=mcrypt.so to the php.ini file (as per the suggestion in https://www.akeebabackup.com/support/site-restoration/19914-kickstart-on-php-v5-5-3.html)


How can I get Admintools to work with the new PHP configuration or at least allow me to login to the backend?
Or should I create a new build on using PHP5.3 instead of PHP5.5 (not sure how to force the installation of a previous version of PHP instead of the latest version), restore the site and then upgrade to PHP 5.5 later?

The site really isn't "built" using one version of php or another, that's an "on the fly" thing. All you need to do is call the old version of php and your site will work with that, you don't need to restore.

I think you were on the right track with mcrypt, it sounds like that function is missing on your 5.5 version. Generally your host has to add the program to the php installation.

You can usually call any available version of php using a directive in your .htaccess file, usually an ADD HANDLER command. Only your host can tell you exactly what the command is since it varies from one host to another.

[Solved]

It is not possible to run PHP5 alongside previous versions of PHP.

There is a PHP5 bug where non-core extensions were moved from /php5/conf.d to /php5/mods-available and mcrypt was left behind.
see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/php-mcrypt/+bug/1241286

Solution:
#to check if mcrypt is running in php:
php -m

#if mcrypt is not listed then
sudo apt-get install php5-mcrypt

#insert sym-link from new location:
sudo ln -s /etc/php5/conf.d/mcrypt.ini /etc/php5/mods-available

#Enable the extension:
sudo php5enmod mcrypt

#Restart your service
sudo service apache2 restart

Thank you for the follow up. I'm glad you got it working!