Please, I need help with PHP 7.4 on Bluehost. Website down

If anyone could help me out I would greatly appreciate it! I’m really stressed out.

I have a very old Concrete5 website (5.6.3.5) that is hosted by Bluehost and it has crashed hard. I only need my site to be running until the end of this year, so it would be horrible if I had to rebuild it from the ground up using the latest version of Concrete CMS. I have very limited experience and do not know how to code. I have basic CMS skills up to a point.

Here is the error from Bluehost:

PHP Fatal error: Cannot use ‘Object’ as class name as it is reserved in /home1/hallelec/public_html/updates/concrete5.6.3.5_remote_updater/concrete/libraries/object.php on line 3

Here is the .htaccess file:

" # Use PHP5.4 as default
" # Changed PHP handler from application/x-httpd-php54 to application/x-httpd-phpbeta on Wed Jan 13 02:29:00 MST 2016.
" # AddHandler application/x-httpd-phpbeta .php

" # – concrete5 urls start –

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.html !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php !-f
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

" # – concrete5 urls end –

" # php – BEGIN cPanel-generated handler, do not edit
" # Set the “ea-php74” package as the default “PHP” programming language.

AddHandler application/x-httpd-ea-php74___lsphp .php .php7 .phtml

" # php – END cPanel-generated handler, do not edit

In the MultiPHP Manager, it says it is running 7.4. I’m not sure how to fix this. Has anyone else figured out a simple way to keep an old site like mine running on Bluehost?

If I simply need to edit the .htaccess file, how, where do I access this? Can it be done somewhere in the Cpanel?

Thank you very much!

I have ‘fixed’ many legacy concrete websites running on Bluehost.
If you want someone to do the job for you, get in touch by private message (PM).
I will require access to the server.

I have sent you a PM to establish communications between us.

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In the MultiPHP Manager you should be able to select the site then select a php version. That will automatically update the .htaccess for you to run under an older version of php. Hopefully options will include php5.x. You may not need php5.4. php5.6 should be viable.

If php5.x is not available, the other option is to update the site to c5.6.4. That can would involve getting the code from GitHub and updating the core. If you were keeping the site long term, that would be a better solution. From what you have described about experience, you should probably take up @ConcreteOwl’s offer if you decide to go that way.

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@JohntheFish my experience with Bluehost is that they offer very fews versions of php in the so called MultiPHP Manager, last one I worked on started at PHP 7 as the starting point going up in versions to PHP 8

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Thank you @ConcreteOwl and @JohntheFish for your quick replies. I think at this point I’m going to need to upgrade the core to 5.6.4.0 so I can utilize PHP7.4 which is now the minimum PHP required on Bluehost. I need to call Bluehost and see if concrete legacy sites will even work on their servers anymore before doing all of this work. I’m going to ask someone I know who has Concrete CMS experience if they can help with updating the core. I came here initially to see if the community knew of some simple steps I could take on my own to fix this PHP problem, but now I know that this will take some serious work. Thank you @ConcreteOwl for your offer, I will still consider your services if I can’t get local help. I really appreciate everyone’s input from the community. - Regards

@erikras good luck with your upgrade, my best advice would be to take a full files and database backup before anyone attempts the upgrade, at least then if it all goes wrong you will have some uncorrupted files to work with.
Get in touch if you need my help

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My advice is that once you solve this, run away from Bluehost. They make these changes that break things without the courtesy of any warning whatsoever. SiteGround gives me plenty of warning before they automatically kill websites. Just my experience. YMMV.

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It’s not that bad a process, it’s just like running previous upgrades, I’ve done many of them myself and since it doesn’t significantly change the database structure, you can roll it back if needed. If you’re still unsure, setup a local copy of the site using MAMP and try the upgrade there. That’s usually what I do.

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A big thank you to @ConcreteOwl for getting my website back online! This was a bit above my skill level so I needed his help. He does great work and I could not have done it alone.