HostGator Reseller - Not PHP 5.6 Compatible

[Sidular]

I've been using HostGator for my storefront since 2012, and everything has been mostly fine. However, now that WHMCS is going to start requiring PHP 5.6 in the upcoming release, I decided to go ahead and upgrade my website to 5.6, via HostGator's PHP configurator.

Turns out, this doesn't have any effect on ionCube. So, some functionality that requires ionCube simply doesn't work, such as automation (cron).

 

I'm trying to get HostGator to upgrade their resellers to support 5.6 as native, but so far, they refuse to do so. When I stated that WHMCS will soon require PHP 5.6 to function, they didn't appear to understand, and said that WHMCS wasn't 5.6 compatible. They even tried to get me to upgrade to a VPS, which is absurd, since I only use their reseller plan to host the storefront.

 

So yeah, I guess this is just a PSA for anyone using or looking to use HostGator to host WHMCS. I can't speak for their shared hosting plan, but their reseller is soon to no longer be compatible with WHMCS. Which seems odd, considering as how they give away licenses, and offer a reseller service to begin with. They're essentially making the entire reseller platform useless by not offering modern technologies.

 

I'm hoping that this is just an oversight. Their tech support (which was live, since they don't offer ticket anymore) gave me an email to contact. Hopefully I can get HostGator to modernize their reseller network, though I doubt I'll make much (or any) difference.

 

I do have a question though. Are they even allowed to no longer offer compatibility with WHMS, being as how they're a partner? You'd think that this would void their partner status, right?

 

Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong section.

[twhiting9275]

As with everything, your experience is going to vary. I'm not saying you're wrong, but you likely just got a support tech that doesn't understand what WHMCS is, or that it is 5.6 compatible (as long as you're using v6).

 

Don't use Hostgator anyways, EIG = evil major conglomorate enterprise. They own pretty much every major hosting company in the world right now.

[Sidular]

As with everything, your experience is going to vary. I'm not saying you're wrong, but you likely just got a support tech that doesn't understand what WHMCS is, or that it is 5.6 compatible (as long as you're using v6).

 

Don't use Hostgator anyways, EIG = evil major conglomorate enterprise. They own pretty much every major hosting company in the world right now.

 

I signed up with the reseller package before EIG purchased HostGator. Only use it to host my main storefront and customer portals, and for that, it served its purpose well enough. Plus, WHMCS is $16 / month, while the reseller package is $25 / month. $10 more, and I also get a fair amount of web space and bandwidth. So, in my mind, it was a good deal.

 

As for the support representative, unfortunately their lack of knowledge was a recurring theme. I've contacted them multiple times, and each time, they were ignorant on what WHMCS was.

Currently, HostGator's reseller network, or at least the one that I'm on, doesn't provide proper support for PHP 5.6. While they give you the option to change PHP to 5.6, doing so doesn't change ionCube, which causes issues. They'd need to upgrade ionCube, or configure it correctly for use with 5.6. Currently, ionCube appears to be installed, but configured incorrectly with HostGator's PHP Configurator.

This is in the phpinfo file.

Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright © 1998-2016 Zend Technologies

with the ionCube PHP Loader (enabled) + Intrusion Protection from ioncube24.com (unconfigured) v5.0.12, Copyright © 2002-2015, by ionCube Ltd.

with Zend Guard Loader v3.3, Copyright © 1998-2014, by Zend Technologies

 

In the logs, it shows.

Failed loading /opt/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.6.so: /opt/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.6.so: undefined symbol: zend_execute_ex

Failed loading /opt/php56/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20131226/ZendGuardLoader.so: /opt/php56/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20131226/ZendGuardLoader.so: undefined symbol: zend_execute_ex

Site error: the file <b>/home/drs/public_html/crons/cron.php</b> requires the ionCube PHP Loader ioncube_loader_lin_5.4.so to be installed by the website operator. If you are the website operator please use the <a href="http://www.ioncube.com/lw/">ionCube Loader Wizard</a> to assist with installation.

 

 

Maybe somebody on here can help with the above error? Is there something that I can do, or is this truly an issue on HostGator's end?

[zomex]

I have personal websites with HostGator and can also confirm they are not very good when it comes to keeping up with modern software/versions. It seems they do the bare minimum with this.

 

However they will be able to update your account for you to run PHP V5.6 but you have to be persistent with tickets, don't take no for an answer.

 

Any good provider now allows you to select PHP version from inside cPanel which is a much better approach than having to contact support.

[myautodj]

Have used Hostgator Reseller for 10+ years, taking advantage of their free WHMCS license, the cron stopped working a couple months ago, opened a ticket, a week went by, no response. Open a chat, after a couple hours a agent would come on and say they had no access to do anything but promised to escalate the ticket, another week and they finally responded and blamed WHMCS -- 5 or 6 different "Linux Techs" later, all claiming they corrected the problem... nothing ever changed. All the while having to suspend and run CC processing by hand just waiting and waiting ... Over a full month later, the last response was again, "It must be WHMCS software" ..... then they just stopped responding, still no response to this day!

 

Over the years the site & DB got to be huge, but we finally moved to a dedicated and used the cPanel/WHM transfer utility which worked great, had to update Apache because IonCube needed to be upgraded, but the migration mostly went smooth. Our client area now loads much faster, it's amazing how slow Hostgators servers were compared to this new server. Hostgator and their employees don't have a clue, the chat agents didn't even know what WHMCS was, they kept confusing it with WHM. The so called "Linux Techs" are anything but.

 

If you care about you company, stay away from Hostgator ... their support is a complete joke, servers are very slow (always thought it was just WHMCS running bad, it was all Hostgator)

 

New dedicated through DotBlock, fastest and most dependable server we have ... going on a year with them and not a single issue! https://www.dotblock.com/dedicated.php

Edited June 24, 2016 by myautodj

[grfirst]

Well I just upgraded to WHMCS 7 and now my site (reseller account) is broken due to the ioncube loader not being able to update. Been going back and forth with Hostgator quite a bit today and they keep telling me to get with WHMCS (You would have to contact WHMCS and ask what PHP version you need to use to fire off the cron because right now you are using 5.4), which their version is (4.3).

[ryross]

I ran into the issue of crons not working but I was able to figure out how to fix it (on hostgator).

 

Change your cron from

 

*/5 * * * * php -q /home/username/public_html/clients/crons/cron.php

to

 

*/5 * * * * /opt/php56/bin/php -q /home/username/public_html/clients/crons/cron.php

The key part you need to change is the path to the php file. You may have setup .htaccess to run PHP 5.6 but the shell that the cron will use won't have it configured so it's best to just call the exact php binary.