PHP Upgrade causing issues to site and Genesis Simple Sidebars

[RaspberrySunshine]

I'm on HostGator and received an e-mail that they had successfully upgraded my website's PHP to 5.4 yesterday. This upgrade caused a fatal error in my .net site and a few issues in my .com site. With tutorials, I managed to find and fix the error in my .net and it is fine now, but I have no idea what the errors in my .com mean or how to fix it.

Here is what comes up on my site when I load it. It also shows up on my WordPress Dashboard:

Warning: Illegal string offset 'name' in /home4/boymom3/public_html/wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/plugin.php on line 105

Warning: Illegal string offset 'description' in /home4/boymom3/public_html/wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/plugin.php on line 107

Obviously it's an issue with the plug-in, but I am a novice and I don't typically mess with anything besides a little CSS styling. How do I fix these issues on my site? I have tried deactivating the plug-in and re-installing it with no success as well.

Can anyone help me out?

http://raspberrysunshine.com

http://raspberrysunshine.com

[AnitaC]

Yes, it is - but you should ask your host if there is an option to downgrade to the original PHP and also not to automatically update your PHP versions. You should do that on your own. Go to your hosting account and you should be able to switch back to the previous version as this new PHP version could also cause you problems with other things. But the option to downgrade to what you were on before should still be in your control panel.

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[AnitaC]

And, plugins are built on a particular PHP version. When you update plugins - it will state whether it's been tested with your particular version of WordPress. So technically speaking - it's not really the plugin - it's not compatible with the new PHP version activated on your account.

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[neilgee]

You may not be able to downgrade if u are on shared hosting.

The error seems odd - I have a few HG accounts running PHP 5.4 with Simple SIdebars and have no issues.... if you look at the 2 lines in question of the file do you see the below:

		genesis_register_sidebar( array(
			'name'        => esc_html( $info['name'] ),
			'id'          => $id,
			'description' => esc_html( $info['description'] ),
			'editable'    => 1,
		) );

The line numbers should equal the name and description lines - do you have the same content?

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Neil Gee
WP Beaches
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[Sportrait]

I'm having the same/similar problem after an upgrade to new php version. I get the errors:

Warning: Illegal string offset 'name' in /homepages/10/d228751313/htdocs/dev_aimphotos/wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/old_plugin copy.php on line 105

Warning: Illegal string offset 'description' in /homepages/10/d228751313/htdocs/dev_aimphotos/wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/old_plugin copy.php on line 107

I have the same lines above but I don't see any resolution for the problem. Can anyone help? For now, I have to disable the plugin using a big hammer and my sidebars are less than working.

Thanks!

[Jack]

I am having the same issue:

Warning: Illegal string offset 'name' in /homepages/*******/htdocs/Willtrav/wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/plugin.php on line 105

Warning: Illegal string offset 'description' in /homepages/********/htdocs/Willtrav/wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/plugin.php on line 107

1and1 is making a upgrade from php 5.2 to recommended php5.5

I have disabled Simple Sidebar for now
any suggestions?

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Jack Kennard
http://jackkennard.com

[Ren Ventura]

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried deleting and re-installing the plugin?

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Web & Software Developer & Blogger | RenVentura.com | Follow Me on Twitter @CLE_Ren

[Andrea Rennick]

Check the plugin support forums please:

https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/genesis-simple-sidebars

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