Hello

We recently updated the PHP version on our website, and think this has killed the forum. We can't now access it at all.

On the control panel the forum does not look to have been updated since 2012, in the updates folder the last version is update_2.x_2.3.php

This sonds plausible. If PHP was updated to any 7.x-version and the last update of the forum took place in 2012, the forum utilises the old MySQL library that was removed from PHP with version 7.0.0. So the script can not access the database for any task.

Can you give me any tips of how to fix it? Sorry I am a total novice trying my best :(

Let's try it. This is a step by step guide.

1. Backup the directory "forum", or whatever the name of the directory of the forum is, from the server to a local directory.

Do it with your FTP client.

2. Backup the database with phpMyAdmin or a similar tool.

Your hosting company should provide such a tool. If you are not sure where you can find it, ask them.

Before you run the next steps I'll describe in the next reply, please report the value of the version from the settings table. Therefore open the backup file (should be readable with every text editor) and search for the line, where you find the string version. in this line you will find the version number of the forum. Should be something like 2.3 or 2.3.1.

Please wait with the next steps until I replied to your message with the version number. What to do depends on the version we'll start from.

Tschö, Auge