XAMPP v3.2.2 with PHP 7.1 error The mbstring extension is missing. Please check your PHP configuration

Question

When trying to login to PhpMyAdmin, I'm getting the error:

The mbstring extension is missing. Please check your PHP configuration

I'm using XAMPP v3.2.2 and PHP v7.2.1 on a Win7 machine.

The error happened after setting up VS CODE to debug PHP..

I've tried all solutions in similar posts, but none of them seem to work.

The entries below in my php.ini file(entries that apparently are supposed to fix the problem) have been changed to:

extension_dir="C:\xampp\php\ext" (set full path to ext folder)

extension=mbstring (uncommented )

extension=mysqli (uncommented )

I'm still not able to login to phpmyadmin even after changing the entries.

Please help

Answer 1

It may be the case that the extension references in your php.ini file should look like:

extension=php_mbstring.dll
extension=php_mysqli.dll

The extension names need to match what is listed in the ext directory.

Answer 2

Can you try to enable extension=exif after extension=mbstring ?

EXIF has a dependency on mbstring and both these extensions enabled solves the problem of PhpMyAdmin.