Hey @austinwendt , is there any way any of us in this thread can help? Don’t know if y’all need beta testers or what, but if there’s anything we can do, happy to help if we can 
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Agreed, in an ideal world, Local supports the PHP versions well before they’re the default on WP Engine and Flywheel. Unfortunately, that’s not where we’re at today, but that is the goal moving forward! To be clear: if you’re hosting with Flywheel or WP Engine, this thread doesn’t mean testing with PHP 8.1 prior to production is impossible. Both hosts have dedicated staging and development environments that can be utilized. We’re working to bring that back to Local (local).
@n8finch I appreciate the offer! Let me check with the dev team - it might be as simple as sharing the PHP builds we have compiled here and having them dropped in the right locations in Local’s application support directory, or it might be more involved. If it can be done though, it’d be great to have the community helping us confirm it is working more quickly than going it solo!
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I can’t even use a package on my local development site right now lol. This is crazy.
[05-Aug-2022 07:25:57 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Composer detected issues in your platform: Your Composer dependencies require a PHP version ">= 8.1.0". You are running 8.0.0. in C:\Users\bamas\Local Sites\bamapolitics\app\public\wp-content\plugins\bama-politics-essentials\vendor\composer\platform_check.php on line 24
@austinwendt any updates or a realistic time estimate for this issue?
This is starting to be critical issue for us both on multiple client sites and internal development. We are also willing to collaborate and test the new version whenever it is available.
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Is this nice project dying because a lack of important php version upgrade? Please, if you can’t take the time to maintain that project, please open it to the community. So it will continue to live and growing up!
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@tuomasvelling I appreciate the offer to help test. The team is continuing to compile the PHP versions for each OS, including some improvements; the new build will include native binaries for MacOS ARM machines, support for the intl and webp PHP extensions, and the latest version of Xdebug for more performance gains. I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but this is the only thing the team is working on right now. The team is working as fast as they can, and we’ll drop the build here soon.
Taking a step up, to the 10,000ft view - admittedly, PHP 8.1 support is a black eye for Local, but we’re learning a lot. Local isn’t dying, and we’re committed to fixing it. We’ll roll these learnings into support for PHP 8.2 (set to release in November), and we’ll support new PHP versions much sooner than we have here. I apologize for dropping the ball on PHP 8.1 and creating headaches for everyone and their teams.
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Sooo I guess I’ll be the one who says it…
It very much appears the single worst thing that ever happened to FlyWheel and Local has been WP Engine. As you mentioned Austin PHP 8.2 is due out in November, we still don’t have 8.1. You say you’ll be supporting new versions of PHP much sooner but what does that mean to us at this point other than anything maybe between now and when the next version comes out?
Anyone using Local as the the development tool backbone for their businesses are just left hanging awaiting on you and we’re told to just keep waiting, how long are we just supposed to keep waiting? How long before as businesses we need to reevaluate things? This among the other issues/limitations of Local leads to serious questions about the long term future of Local for our development purposes and our development teams as a whole.
I’d say this is more than a black eye for Local. I’ve been using Local from the very beginning and am ready to ditch it all together at this point, not to mention we can’t even get replies or acknowledgement towards WSL support in the future.
@dsnid3r They said PHP 8.2 is coming out in November and that they will take the lessons learned from the challenges to support PHP 8.1 towards making sure that doesn’t happen when PHP 8.2 releases too.
They aren’t saying we’re waiting until November.
Most likely it’ll be something we see in the next few weeks, the pressure is high for their dev team to pull this off and they just need to clear the last issues to make sure we aren’t running some messed up configs on our Local instances. I’m glad they’re making sure it’s right before releasing it before it was ready.
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@sc0ttkclark Thanks I did misread the “drop the build here soon” part. I edited my comment but stand by the rest of my comment. I’m ready to drop Local from our development workflows.
@dsnid3r I understand the frustration; I apologize that we’ve let you down. I’d like to learn more about your workflow and your development team, particularly so it can help inform the team’s prioritization decisions. I’ll DM you.
As for the build, I do have an update - we started compiling a Local Beta this morning that will allow us to reference the updated PHP versions. For a lot of reasons, this will be better than having users trying to drop updated binaries into application support directories. To test it out, we’re using a PHP 8.0 bump (PHP 8.0.22) to confirm the build lets us collaborate on testing; this will also unblock some users who need updated PHP 8 to resolve some bugs.
@n8finch, @tuomasvelling and others who have offered to help test - if you’re still interested, can you share which OS you’re on? That’ll help me get the builds and make sure we’re covering our bases.
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Hey @austinwendt sure thing:
- on a M1 MackbookPro, MacOS Monterey 12.5
- converted MacbookPro to PopOS (Linux), so I could test there too.
Hope that’s helpful.
M1 MacBook Air, Monterey 12.5.1
Please add me to the testing.
Windows 11.
Please add me to testing as well.
M1Max MacBook Pro 16, Monterey 12.5.1
M1 MacBook Pro, Monterey 12.5.1
Feel free to add me to testing!
M1 MacBook Pro, Monterey 12.2.1
M1 MacBook Pro, Monterey 12.5.1
Thank you all for the offer to test, we really appreciate it! Update: Local Beta 6.4.3 is out now for download - Local Beta 6.4.3
This bumps PHP 7.4 and 8.0 to their latest releases and adds additional extensions and upgrades within PHP. Behind the scenes, it also changes how Local pulls in which PHP versions to make available, meaning we’ll be able to push PHP 8.1 live without needing a new build.
As a first step, can you all try downloading the build and confirming you can see the updated PHP 7.4/8.0 as options when building a site? You’ll choose “Custom” environment in the setup flow. This will confirm that we’re pulling the PHP options from the right locations.
For the M1 users, you can use the standard Mac link for right now, but our goal is that we’ll have a fully native Apple Silicon build for you to test this on too… Fingers crossed, working through some code signing/notarization things and it should be ready to roll.
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