PHPMyAdmin 500 Internal Server Error in Apache due to PHP Version

Question

Version:

• OS lsb_release -a : Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
• PHP php -v : 8.0.1
• Apache apache2 -v : 2.4.29 (Ubuntu)
• MySQL mysql --version : mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.32

---

Problem:

I'm trying to install LAMP Stack using following article . However, I was getting HTTP 500 Error while accessing phpmyadmin from browser.

And installed phpmyadmin using below command.

• sudo apt install phpmyadmin php-mbstring php-zip php-gd php-json php-curl

---

Tried:

So, I checked with Error Log tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log and found that Phpmyadmin was running on depreciated version of PHP.

[Sat Jan 30 12:56:38.798871 2021] [php:error] [pid 17271] [client 
103.25.169.179:28514] PHP Fatal error:  Array and string offset access 
syntax with curly braces is no longer supported in 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/Util.php on line 2087

[Sat Jan 30 12:56:38.798871 2021] [php:error] [pid 17271] [client 103.25.169.179:28514] PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught ValueError: 
mb_convert_encoding(): Argument #2 ($to_encoding) must be a valid 
encoding, "" given in /usr/share/php/php-php-
gettext/gettext.inc:181\nStack trace:\n#0 /usr/share/php/php-php-
gettext/gettext.inc(181): mb_convert_encoding()\n#1 /usr/share/php/php-
php-gettext/gettext.inc(278): _encode()\n#2 /usr/share/php/php-php-
gettext/gettext.inc(285): _gettext()\n#3 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/sanitizing.lib.php(179): __()\n#4 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/Message.php(607): PMA_sanitize()\n#5 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/Message.php(672): 
PMA\\libraries\\Message::decodeBB()\n#6 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/Error.php(220): PMA\\libraries\\Message-
>getMessage()\n#7 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/ErrorHandler.php(193): 
PMA\\libraries\\Error->getHash()\n#8 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/ErrorHandler.php(156): 
PMA\\libraries\\ErrorHandler->addError()\n#9 [internal function]: 
PMA\\libraries\\ErrorHandler->handleError()\n#10 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/session.inc.php(133): ini_set()\n#11 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/common.inc.php(280): require('...')\n#12 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/index.php(13): require_once('...')\n#13 {main}\n  
thrown in /usr/share/php/php-php-gettext/gettext.inc on line 181

• I'd solved Array and string offset access syntax error by removing { } with [ ]
• Run the following command sudo phpenmod mbstring

Answer 1

Important:

Please change the version number to get more security if you have phpMyAdmin exposed to the public or need features from newer phpMyAdmin versions.

This was taken from a chat. Some things might be inaccurate, but this solved the OP's problem

Install PHPMyAdmin using the following tutorial:

1.

apt purge phpmyadmin -y

cd /path/to/somefolder

wget https://files.phpmyadmin.net/phpMyAdmin/5.1.0-rc1/phpMyAdmin-5.1.0-rc1-all-languages.zip && unzip phpMyAdmin-5.1.0-rc1-all-languages.zip && 
cd phpMyAdmin-5.1.0-rc1-all-languages

apt install pwgen -y

5. Make note of the output of this command, I will refer to it as pw

pwgen -s 32 1

cp config.sample.inc.php config.inc.php

7. Edit config.inc.php with favorite editor, and paste the pw in this line:

. . .
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'STRINGOFTHIRTYTWORANDOMCHARACTERS'; /* YOU MUST FILL IN THIS FOR COOKIE AUTH! */
. . .

vim /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpmyadmin-custom.conf

9. Paste the following to that previous command:

Alias /phpmyadmin /path/to/that/phpMyAdmin-5.1.0-rc1-all-languages
<Directory "/path/to/that/phpMyAdmin-5.1.0-rc1-all-languages">
Options SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
DirectoryIndex index.php
Require all granted
</Directory>

10. Save the previous one using :wq , Run the following command

a2enconf phpmyadmin-custom && systemctl restart apache2 && mysql

11. Replace your_password_here to your own password.

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'your_password_here';

systemctl restart mysql

It should work now.

Additional notes:

To only allow you to view phpMyAdmin, try:

<Directory "/path/to/that/phpMyAdmin-5.1.0-rc1-all-languages">
Options SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
DirectoryIndex index.php
Require local
# Or change it to
# Require ip 127.0.0.1
# change 127.0.0.1 to your personal computers ip address,
# not to the server ip
# if you want to access phpMyAdmin from a public server, but not allow others to access it
</Directory>

Answer 2

My server configuration:

Particular	Command	Output
OS	# lsb_release -a	Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
PHP	# php -v	PHP 8.0.3
Apache	# apache2 -v	Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu)
MySQL	# mysql --version	mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.33

I solved the issue by modifying these two files:

# nano /usr/share/php/Symfony/Component/DependencyInjection/ContainerBuilder.php

$service = null === $r->getConstructor()? $r->newInstance(): $r->newInstanceArgs($arguments);

to

$service = null === $r->getConstructor()? $r->newInstance(): $r->newInstanceArgs(array_values($arguments));

Another file CoreExtension.php

# nano -l /usr/share/php/Twig/Extension/CoreExtension.php

if (isset($object->$item) || \array_key_exists((string) $item, $object)) {

to

if (isset($object->$item) || array_key_exists((string) $item, json_decode(json_encode($object), true))) {

.. Finally restart the server..

# service apache2 restart

Answer 3

If you have an error like array and string offset access syntax with curly braces is no longer supported phpmyadmin - the reason is that perhaps you have an old version of Linux/Ubuntu and old version of phpMyAdmin but new version of PHP 8+. Use these commands to fix the problem:

apt --yes install php-mbstring php8.1-gettext
apt --yes purge phpmyadmin
rm -rf /usr/share/phpmyadmin
mkdir /usr/share/phpmyadmin
cd /tmp
wget https://files.phpmyadmin.net/phpMyAdmin/5.2.0/phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages.zip
unzip /tmp/phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages.zip
cp -a /tmp/phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages/* /usr/share/phpmyadmin
rm -rf /tmp/phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages.zip
rm -rf /tmp/phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages/

To make a symlink use commands:

NOTE : /var/www/mysite.com/public_html/ is an example, paste your path to the site files on server

ln -s /usr/share/phpmyadmin /var/www/mysite.com/public_html/phpmyadmin

OPTIONAL . If you want to secure the phpMyAdmin folder with login and password as HTTP Basic Authentication - use commands:

apt --yes install apache2-utils
htpasswd -c /var/www/mysite.com/public_html/.htpasswd-phpmyadmin yourlogingoeshere
#enter your password

And finally Nginx additional settings on your site config

[...]
#phpmyadmin
location /phpmyadmin/ {
    auth_basic "Restricted";
    auth_basic_user_file /var/www/mysite.com/public_html/.htpasswd-phpmyadmin;
}

Do not forget to restart Nginx service nginx restart

Answer 4

I thought I'd add a quick note - If by chance you have more than one version of PHP installed either accidentally or deliberately, its possible that the PHP version in question does not have all of the necessary modules. To determine your active version, at the command line (terminal) do:

php -v

It will return the current active version. In my case this was v 8.1 but I had previously installed version 8.0

To quickly fix the issue, I just re-installed the necessary packages like so:

sudo apt install php8.1 php8.1-cli php8.1-common php8.1-curl php8.1-gd php8.1-intl php8.1-mbstring php8.1-mysql php8.1-opcache php8.1-readline php8.1-xml php8.1-xsl php8.1-zip php8.1-bz2 libapache2-mod-php8.1 -y

Answer 5

my fix was upgrading phpmyadmin

here an easy to follow guide:

https://devanswers.co/manually-upgrade-phpmyadmin/