Stats Collection Feature Won't Enable on SMF 2.1.1

[Michael Vail]

SMF Version 2.1.1
PHP Version 7.3.3
Link to Site:  https://santarosapoa.com/members
Link to PHP Info: https://santarosapoa.com/phpinfo.php

Problem: I run three SMF forum sites hosted through https://siteground.com. Two of the three sites have "Allow Stats Collection" enabled with the box checked in the "Server Settings" area but when I attempt to check the stats box for the one listed above and save the setting, the screen clears and the box remains unchecked.

Is there some requirement that needs to be enabled for stats collection that I should check?

Any help would be appreciated. 
Thank you.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

I believe some settings that are rarely changed can be cached so that you may be fooled in to thinking nothing changed, try emptying your forums cache and checking again? If it still seems to be stuck, try setting it off first, and then on again.

[Arantor]

It may also be that there's a server problem with the connection to simplemachines.org (in the same way the package server has a problem).

In any case, I'm not sure the stats would tell SMF anything particularly useful, they're going to be reporting that there's 1 more site out there running the same PHP/MySQL versions that you have on the other two sites (probably)... not sure it would be a meaningful report.

[Michael Vail]

Thank you for the suggestions guys but the setting box won't enable after trying them. I guess I'll need to leave it off for now. I just wanted to provide as much info as possible to the SMF devs for their future development.

Thanks again and have a good weekend.

[Steve]

Should he not bump his PHP to a at least 7.4.3?

[Michael Vail]

I used the host control panel for my site and bumped it to the highest version of PHP 7 they offer which is 7.3.33. This didn't fix the problem. I already tried PHP versions 8.0.18 and 8.1.5. Using them didn't fix the problem either and when using any version PHP 8, several Tiny Portal blocks stop working. My other sites are using PHP 7.3.33 without issue when activating stats. 

Thanks for the suggestion Steve. It was worth a shot.

[Steve]

Actually, I didn't think it would correct your problem but I thought it would eliminate any EOL errors.

[Oldiesmann]

What version of TinyPortal are you using out of curiosity? I haven't run into any issues with TP and PHP 8 on my server

[@rjen]

I suspect those are custom php blocks. The standard TP release is compatible with PHP 8

[Michael Vail]

Forgive me for going off-topic here but I wanted to answer Oldiesman's question. I created a separate post on the TP site where this can be discussed in more detail so I don't derail this topic too much. The topic can be found here:

https://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?topic=36762.0

I'm using the latest public release of Tiny Portal (2.2.1). TP displays the blocks fine when my site is set to use the PHP 7.3 and 7.4 versions offered by my provider (siteground.com), but when I enable PHP version 8.0 and 8.1, none of the blocks in the Upper, Front, Lower, Bottom and Right panels display at all. With the exception of a custom calendar block (originally created for TP) at the top of the right panel which displays a bunch or PHP errors and no calendar, all of the other blocks just show as white space. The blocks that won't display include 2 of the 3 recent topic area blocks, 2 of the 3 RSS feed blocks, a User Info block, a Forum Stats block and several very basic custom HTML blocks I created.

I haven't investigated the issue at length because frankly, I didn't want to bother people with it since PHP 7 still works and my sites are running ok with it. Once PHP 8 is my only option, I'll be in some trouble and will need to resolve these issues. Judging by the fact that numerous TP blocks don't show at all, not even their block headers, something is definitely amiss beyond just each blocks' specific code.

Below are a couple of images showing what happens when PHP 8.0 and 8.1 is activated vs 7.3 and 7.4 on one of the sites. They are all of the front page. There are two additional lower panel blocks on the site that I'm unable to fit into the images due to the screen space they take up, but they are simply white and none of the block headers show for them either.

Take care all and Happy Mother's Day.

[@rjen]

Confirm

I suspect those are custom php blocks. The standard TP release is compatible with PHP 8

Confirmed: custom php block code