Can't install Wordpress.org on php 7

[Paul Barrett]

I have been running several WordPress sites on my 916+ 8GB under php 5.6 for a couple of years but since that is EOL I thought I should try an installation using php 7

When I run the famous 5 minute install, enter the required details on the first screen and process submit I get white screen of death.

The corresponding virtual host is set to run Apache 2.4 and php7

There are two php profiles, for 5.6 and 7. I notice that under Web Station > General Settings there is only a single php option, and it is set to 5.6. Does this need to be set to 7 for 7 to run, and if so, will making that change cause all my 5.6 dependent sites to fail?

[steven]

I am using php 7. If you are running a program in the root folder that requires php 5.6 and you change to php 7 it will quit working. If you are using virtual hosts it should not have any affect. Here are the requirements for the latest version of WordPress.

Are you using the same table prefix for the new version? To install a second WordPress site, you should use a different table prefix.

[Paul Barrett]

I run everything out of subfolders, so there is nothing in the root apart from an index.html. I'm not sure why that's there.

I use a different prefix for the tables. I have one application that I don't need - Lime Survey - that I am going to delete, just in case that's implicated.

Web Station > General Settings is set to use Apache as the back-end server, not nginx. Should I change that?

It also has the PHP profile set as 5.6. I have a 7.0 profile, should I change that?

Otherwise, all 11, yes 11, of my wordpress installs are 5.6

[Paul Barrett]

There's another thing that I think I can tidy up. I have Maria DB 5 installed. But from the php admin page it looks as though there are no installs dependent on it, so it can go.

[Paul Barrett]

And finally, I have cleared out a load of redundant WordPress installs.

Having done that I have compared my list of wordpress folders in \web with my list or wordpress data tables in phpmyadmin, and the latter has one table that I can't account for. It has no matching folders in \web. It is called simply "wordpress" and it contains tables.

I think this must be an orphaned legacy of the days when I ran Synology's official packaged version of WordPress, and I can safely delete it?

[steven]

Sorry for the delay I'm still packing for my trip, which I'm not very good at, and didn't see your post.

I deleted MariaDB 5 and the Synology WordPress package some time ago. I had to go through SSH using putty to get rid of everything which solved the issues I had.

Hopefully you created php error logs. If you did, you should be able to check them to see what happened.

[Paul Barrett]

I tried installing wp.org version on my clean test box with nginx as the back-end and php7 as front-end. No difference. Hangs at the same place.

[Paul Barrett]

Here's a thought. I wonder if the problem is with the initiation of the installation screen in php7? Suppose I install it using php5.66 and then change the Web Station setting from 5.66 to 7?

Thoughts?

[steven]

Since you have a white screen and nothing else, it's difficult to determine the problem. Do you have the php error log enabled? If not I would enable it first and start there.

[Paul Barrett]

I don't know if I have php error log enabled, nor how to enable it.