Will upgrading PHP effect older versions of Joomla/VM?

[jimleeder123]

We are looking to upgrade our PHP level from 5.3 to the latest version.

What I want to know is - Are there any risks to older Joomla/VM installations? We have Joomla 1.5 and 2.5 websites we will be looking to migrate after the upgrade. Virtuemart versions are 1 with the Joomla 1.5 websites, and VM3.0.1 with the 2.5 websites. Will they stop working? Will they lose functionality?

I've never done any PHP upgrade on our server before so I need to know. Our server admin will be carrying out the upgrade, but please let me know so we can be sure and give it the go ahead.

[jenkinhill]

The latest PHP release version is 5.6.11  (last release in the 5.5 series was 5.5.27 )

Joomla 1.5 does work with PHP5.4 but throws up a lot of warnings & notices that have to be suppressed.  VM1.1 worked OK for me on PHP5.4 with warnings suppressed, but never tried it on 5.5/6

Some problems have been reported with Joomla 2.5 on PHP5.5, I have seen no reports of J2.5 on PHP5.6, but J.4 works OK on 5.6   VM3 should be OK (I really hope you are using the latest VM3.0.9.4 version and not the old 3.0.1 version!

In your situation I would test all sites on a localhost set to use the same PHP version as will be on the server.

[jimleeder123]

What do you mean by suppressed? How would you get rid of those warnings? Do you know what they are?

Obviously we would try to migrate the sites as quickly as possible to the latest versions.

Do these warnings stop the sites working altogether? Or do they still work?

[jenkinhill]

See http://tinyurl.com/prrd8zb

The error display can stop some thigs working and also put off shoppers.