Upgrading from SMF 1.1 RC3 to 2.1.2

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Seem to be several different problems here.  1.1.21 upgrade is borked due to collation.  All tables should be utf8_general_ci, Settings.php must have $db_character_set = 'utf8';.  Shouldn't be hitting a memory limit at 134mb, I've upgraded much larger forums with 256mb.  Default on my host is 128mb.   Could also be bad config in MariaDB (that's a host issue), or possibly a problem with the joomla bridge (that's beyond me).

I'd suggest reverting to original db and files, get it running correctly, then fix collation and upgrade to 1.1.21 again.  If it works, try upgrading to 2.0.

[Imago]

php.ini

date.timezone=Europe/Sofia
register_globals=Off
display_errors=Off
post_max_size=32M
memory_limit=256M
upload_max_filesize=32M
max_execution_time=30
expose_php=Off
session.save_path=/tmp
magic_quotes_gpc=On
magic_quotes_sybase=Off
error_reporting=E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED
engine=On
file_uploads=On
upload_tmp_dir=/tmp
session.use_trans_sid=Off

mod_security - off for this subdomain
php-fpm 74, then 8.0
MariaDB 10.4.26 (afraid to change it, as there are other sites on the server using it)

upgrade to 2.1.2 after altering the attachments table and adding the hash - as in the images above
Error logs recorded for this subdomain and date

Got error 'PHP message: PHP Deprecated: mysql_connect(): The mysql extension is deprecated and will be removed in the future: use mysqli or PDO instead in .../upgrade.php on line 47'

As for 1.1.21 - question marks persist immediately after uploading files

BTW, I have reverted to old RC3 files and DB but the question marks still remained. It turned out that the php was still 5.6. Changed to php 5.3 and the question marks disappeared. Seems that php56 is retaining some data from the previous installation - as for instance reading the old Settings.php that is no more on the server. Change to 5.3 and data from the new Settings.php appear. This is very strange...

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Are you using a vps?  Shouldn't have any problems with MariaDB unless it's badly configured.  My host is currently running 10.0.16, and I'm using php 7.4 on a Litespeed box for 2.0.19 and 2.1.2 forum installs.  Try disabling server caching, forum caching, and clear forum /cache. 

[Imago]

Are you using a vps?

Yes. And CWP Pro for 12 bucks/yr. There are still some issues with CWP. Probably I should buy some cheap cPanel shared hosting, install my old cpbackups, upgrade to the last versions of all ancient installations and then migrate CPanel tarballs to CWP. Or install Lightspeed (thanks!) and try again...

[Imago]

Update. Seems that the problem is in Centos Web-panel. Successfully upgraded to 1.1.21 - on a new cPanel shared hosting. Further upgrade requires VPS with cPanel to manage mySQL versions.

Copied the files of 1.1.21 from the cPanel account to the CWP one and there were no more question marks. Will take it from here.

Thank you, guys, for the help and suggestions!

[Steve]

Marking solved then. If you run into more issues, go ahead and mark it unsolved.