Cron errors about ionCube and PHP

[pingnd]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some guidance here. I setup WHMCS and it is working fine and I setup my Cron jobs in cPanel for the website. I'm on a HostGator reseller package. However, I am getting the below e-mails where it is complaining about ionCube and and the PHP version. I figured I needed a higher version of PHP and unfortunately, the PHP selector only allows you to change the default folder by folder. I had HostGator create .htaccess files everywhere to force PHP 7.1 but that does not seem to have solved this issue.  Any pointers would be great. Thank you!

 

<br />
<b>Fatal error</b>:  The file /home2/<USERNAME>/public_html/clients/crons/cron.php cannot be run by the ionCube Loader. Please ask the script provider to supply an encoded file that can run on your version of PHP, 5.4. in <b>Unknown</b> on line <b>0</b><br />

[Kian]

Hi,

The problem is that cron daemon still uses PHP 5.4 as default. Someone forgot to change it. You should ask your server admin to make sure that crons run with a decent version of PHP.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Kian

[tronyx]

I am having this problem right now. This is what I found.

I moved my Cron folder outside the public_html and forgot to create the config.php. WHMCS has a config.php.new file in the folder and you need to rename it AND point to your WHMCS location directory under the  public_html directory.

I also had my WH admin change the PHP version to 5.6.

[tronyx]

Hi All,

Well, that didn't work, lol.

Woke up to these emails:

<br />
<b>Fatal error</b>:  The file /home1/tronyx/crons/domainsync.php cannot be run by the ionCube Loader. Please ask the script provider to supply an encoded file that can run on your version of PHP, 5.4. in <b>Unknown</b> on line <b>0</b><br />

<br />
<b>Fatal error</b>:  The file /home1/tronyx/crons/cron.php cannot be run by the ionCube Loader. Please ask the script provider to supply an encoded file that can run on your version of PHP, 5.4. in <b>Unknown</b> on line <b>0</b><br />

So the file cron.php, (and domainsync.php) can't be run on ionCube because my server is running PHP54? This can't be a new thing with WHMCS and WH's, can it?

[tronyx]

Any help would really be appreciated.

[Kian]

Your cPanel is using PHP 5.4 to run crons hence the error. Make sure your cPanel uses PHP 7.2 to solve the issue.

[tronyx]

Thanks Kian,

I have set some of the directories manually. I asked my WH to cascade it throughout my domain but they have/did NOT.

I also believe that the cron daemon is running PHP54 and needs to be updated. However, when I speak to support they are simply Googling answers and telling me they have done this, or that, but not really doing anything.

I am getting frustrated and wish I had access to do it myself, but sadly, I do not have access.

I will continue to 'bother' them until I get an admin.

COVID 19 has been keeping all of us rather busy too.

[carlswart]

If you have not yet been able to fix this, I think that you have configured your cron to use the system default PHP, which seems to be version 5.4, instead of the version your site makes use of.

Here is an example for my crontab entry:

*/5     *       *       *       *       /opt/plesk/php/7.2/bin/php -c /var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/etc/php.ini /var/www/vhosts/example.com/private/crons/cron.php

You will need to adjust the above to match your hosting environment.
 

[tronyx]

@carlswart

Testing that right now...

[tronyx]

Result:

• /usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell: opt/plesk/php/7.2/bin/php: No such file or directory

What has been working is:

• /opt/php56/bin/php/home/delta/crons/cron.php

Thank you for replying.

[WHMCS ChrisD]

@tronyx Thanks for your post, as you are using cPanel, not Plesk opt/plesk/php/7.2/bin/php will not work for you.

Instead ask your host for the path to PHP 7.2 it will be along the lines of "/opt/php72/bin/php"  making your cron command  /opt/php72/bin/php -q /path/to/cron/cron.php