We have made a separate plugin for older php installations. Installing this plugin should fix the issue for you: https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerpress-getid3/
Once your host is using newer version of php then you can remove this plugin. Also you should push your hosting provide as WordPress 4.4+ requires php 5.6+ now, so long term you need to have them fix this
I don’t think it’s my hosting provider – they use the latest versions and have updated it several times to at least 5.4. Something else is affecting the version (and is changing it to an older version), and I suspect it is the powerpress plugin because problems started occurring on 6/6/16, the date of one of the recent powerpress updates.
Plugin Support
Shawn
(@shawnogordo)
If you don’t mind telling us, who is your web hosting provider? The lead developer of PowerPress would like to know.
davidpmariano,
In a way you are correct, it is PowerPress’s fault. We updated the getid3 library in PowerPress to the latest version. The latest version of the GetID3 library requires PHP 5.4 or newer. I Am sorry this has inconvenienced you but we made this decision based on WordPress now requiring PHP 5.6+. So yes, your problem would have started when you updated to PowerPress 7.0 or 7.0.1.
I am not sure why your web hosting is reverting back to older versions of PHP, but I can guarantee you that there is no way PowerPress is making your server use an older version of PHP. It takes a server administrator to change PHP versions.
If BlueHost is claiming that the PowerPress plugin is the cause of their servers reverting to older versions of PHP, please have them contact me at cio [at] blubrry dot com. I would love to discuss such a claim with BlueHost.
We did anticipate there would be folks who would not be able to upgrade their PHP. We made the older getID3 library available in a separate plugin for this reason. The only major downfall to using the older GetID3 library is that some newer audio formats are not supported.
Simply install this add-on plugin and enable it. It should solve your specific problem: https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerpress-getid3/
As far as PHP 5.2 is concerned, this is both a security issue and an issue with future compatibility with WordPress. You really need to give your web hosting a hard time about reverting back to such an older version. PHP 5.2 was released in 2006, it’s end of life was in January of 2011, and it has not updated since.WordPress now requires PHP 5.6 or newer, it is only a matter of time before you run into other WordPress features not working correctly.
I have found where the message is coming from in the getID3 library and will be removing it for the next update to PowerPress. This doesn’t necessarily solve the PHP 5.2 issue you are having but it will make the error message go away.
I will be releaseing PowerPress 7.0.2 over the weekend.
Angelo – thank you very much for looking into it. This is very helpful since I am not a technical guy (unfortunately I have to go on what others tell me so I kind of feel stuck in the middle). Hopefully your explanation will help me on the other side. Again, I really appreciate you looking into it.
