Replace php 7 version with php 5.4

manpreet Best Answer 3 years ago

I was moving some sites from a server to a new one. A few sites would not work after moving them. One of them said "MySQL not supported by your PHP version". After searching, it seems to be caused by deprecated mysql extension. So I thought changing php version to same as old server would resolve this - old server php version is 5.4.45

I tried following some answers to similar questions but nothing worked. I did this one but since mysql is already deprecated in php5.6, this wouldn't fix my problem: How can I downgrade from PHP 7 to PHP 5.6 on Ubuntu 16.04?

Tried these ones also: How do I install different (upgrade or downgrade) PHP version in still supported Ubuntu release?

How to downgrade PHP from 5.5.9 to 5.4 in Ubuntu 14.04 (Installed with LAMP)

I guess that since these questions are a few years old already, resources might not be available anymore.

Can anyone tell me a way to install php 5.4 that will work in present time?

Additional info: - ubuntu 16.04

manpreet 3 years ago

The short answer is, you don't. 5.4 is no longer supported and has known vulnerabilities that will not be fixed.

The only way it's possible is find the source and compile it yourself.

However, this is all for naught. Using sudo apt install php5.6-mysql as explained in Installing PHP 5.6 on Xenial (16.04) will get you what you need.

You need to understand that deprecated isn't the same as removed. mysql() will still work in the 5.5/5.6. It's not recommended to continue using it, but it does work, you'll just need to turn your logging down to rid yourself of the deprecation warnings.

php.ini

error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_NOTICE

If you're receiving an error related to an undefined function, that means it's unable to call the function you're trying to use. In your case, it would be most likely due to missing the php5.6-mysql module.

Some basic modules you'll most likely need, in addition to php5.6-mysql is included in the following line.

sudo apt-get install php5.6-mbstring php5.6-mcrypt php5.6-mysql php5.6-xml