phpmyadmin blank page - getCookie error when 'php index.php'

Question

when accessing the www.hostname/phpmyadmin/ page i get the blank page. Tried to reinstall PHP,HTTPD and MYSQL. After running php index.php in the phpmyadmin folder I get the following error:

[root@ansible1 phpmyadmin]# php index.php 
PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught Error: Call to a member function getCookie() on null in /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Url.php:219
Stack trace:
#0 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Url.php(171): PhpMyAdmin\Url::getCommonRaw(Array, '?')
#1 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(762): PhpMyAdmin\Url::getCommon(Array)
#2 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(338): PhpMyAdmin\Core::linkURL('https://secure....')
#3 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(364): PhpMyAdmin\Core::getPHPDocLink('book.json.php')
#4 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(1006): PhpMyAdmin\Core::warnMissingExtension('json', true)
#5 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/common.inc.php(110): PhpMyAdmin\Core::checkExtensions()
#6 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/index.php(23): require_once('/usr/share/phpm...')
#7 {main}
  thrown in /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Url.php on line 219

On the line 219 in the corresponding file:

 public static function getCommonRaw($params = [], $divider = '?')
    {
        /** @var Config $PMA_Config */
        global $PMA_Config;
        $separator = Url::getArgSeparator();

        // avoid overwriting when creating navi panel links to servers
        if (isset($GLOBALS['server'])
            && $GLOBALS['server'] != $GLOBALS['cfg']['ServerDefault']
            && ! isset($params['server'])
            && ! $PMA_Config->get('is_setup')
        ) {
            $params['server'] = $GLOBALS['server'];
        }

        if (empty($PMA_Config->getCookie('pma_lang')) && ! empty($GLOBALS['lang'])) {
            $params['lang'] = $GLOBALS['lang'];
        }

        $query = http_build_query($params, '', $separator);

        if ($divider != '?' || strlen($query) > 0) {
            return $divider . $query;
        }

Not sure what I am doing wrong but havent found this error on the internet.... The blowfish secret is set:

$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'H2OxcGXxflSd8JwrwVlh6KW6s2rER63i';

Any idea what could I be missing? Even a hint what direction to look will be appreciated.

EDIT1:

Downgraded to version 4.9.4 - getting the similar error:

So after downgrading to version 4.9.4 I get the very similar....

[root@ansible1 phpmyadmin]# php index.php 
PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught Error: Call to a member function getCookie() on null in /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Url.php:217
Stack trace:
#0 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Url.php(169): PhpMyAdmin\Url::getCommonRaw(Array, '?')
#1 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(749): PhpMyAdmin\Url::getCommon(Array)
#2 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(330): PhpMyAdmin\Core::linkURL('https://secure....')
#3 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(353): PhpMyAdmin\Core::getPHPDocLink('book.json.php')
#4 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Core.php(987): PhpMyAdmin\Core::warnMissingExtension('json', true)
#5 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/common.inc.php(106): PhpMyAdmin\Core::checkExtensions()
#6 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/index.php(27): require_once('/usr/share/phpm...')
#7 {main}
  thrown in /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/classes/Url.php on line 217

The page now shows: Access Denied - simply written, no pictures or anything.

What am I missing? :/

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Answer 1

I don't know if my previous post is visible, so I post it again:

I had the same error message, and row #4 says: "PhpMyAdmin\\Core::warnMissingExtension('json', true)".

After installing php-json package, problem was solved for me.