We are dealing with an issue on Coppermine 1.6.29.
We recently moved our entire cPanel to a new server and updated Coppermine after the move.
Now, we are unable to access the "Admin Tools" area.
Multiple admins are able to upload images and perform other duties, but no one can access the Admin Tools.
We are getting the following error, "PHP Request Shutdown: Use of mbstring.http_input is deprecated File: Unknown - Line: 0"
We looked through the htaccess and php.ini and could not find any references to the mbstring. We also ran a version check and found no errors.
We are using php 8.5 and tried moving it back to 8.0 to no avial.
We also installed a new program from scratch, on another cPanel that is using the same server and php. The new install worked fine.
So, we are perplexed as to what additional steps we can take to find the problem. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciate, however we would need step by step directions as we are a non-profit entity and none of our volunteers are trained in programming.
Thank you very much for any assistance.
The problem that you are having would seem to be stemming from some system configuration issue. If you search various AI platforms (Gemini, ChatGpt, Claude) for your failure message, you will likely find methods to try for resolution. Are you running a bunch of plugins on the problem instance? I suppose some plugin could be causing the problem. Disable all your plugins to see if there is any change.
Hi Ron4Mac,
We appreciate your answer.
We do not run any plugins and have checked AI for solutions,
We have been running this installation of Coppermine for many-many years without any problems, so we are not sure why this is happening now.
We even tried to run a backup, but it would not load properly, so it seems like something got corrupted.
It seems like our only choice now is to either compare every file in the corrupted site to the files in a brand new working installation----or----- make a backup of our database through our cPanel and use that backup to populate a new installation.
Both of these operations will be time consuming, so we were hoping someone here had other suggestions
Thanks
Hello Legacies:
Assuming a plugin issue is ruled out, could it be that you have a theme installed that's causing the problem when accessing that deprecated function?
In Config - Themes settings, select a standard CPG theme, such as water_drops, for example, and check if it still hides the Admin Tools.
Quote from: andresf on June 04, 2026, 01:17:29 PMHello Legacies:
Assuming a plugin issue is ruled out, could it be that you have a theme installed that's causing the problem when accessing that deprecated function?
In Config - Themes settings, select a standard CPG theme, such as water_drops, for example, and check if it still hides the Admin Tools.
As an aside.
There are 3 ways that coppermine decides what theme to show you:
1. based on the current config setting - stored in the database - (_config table)
2. based on a cookie that contains your preference.
3. based on a parameter passed in the url, eg. www.yoursite.com/index.php?theme=yourtheme
If you ever have probs with a theme you can just add ?theme=curve to end of your gallery url and it will set the theme to curve (for you only)
Once you have finished testing with that theme you can reset your cookies to use your default theme with
www.yoursite.com/index.php?theme=???
- Post a link to one of the offending sites (it helps people to help you and could identify something you might have missed describing the problem, such as if your sites are linked with a Wordpress install (as an example))
- If running any custom header or footer, remove either the DB setting using phpMyAdmin in Cpanel or just remove the file(s) using File Manager
Because I'm curious, could you please enter <problem-site-url>/util.php in your browser and tell me whether you are presented with the admin tool page?
Quote from: phill104 on June 04, 2026, 03:03:50 PMAs an aside.
There are 3 ways that coppermine decides what theme to show you:
1. based on the current config setting - stored in the database - (_config table)
2. based on a cookie that contains your preference.
3. based on a parameter passed in the url, eg. www.yoursite.com/index.php?theme=yourtheme
If you ever have probs with a theme you can just add ?theme=curve to end of your gallery url and it will set the theme to curve (for you only)
Once you have finished testing with that theme you can reset your cookies to use your default theme with www.yoursite.com/index.php?theme=???
Thank you, I didn't know this
Thanks to everyone for all of the suggestions.
The theme we use is the standard theme out of the box. No changes have been made to it. The url to the site is https://americanlegacies.org/img/
When I enter the site name followed by /util.php, I get the same error.
Around 4 years ago you gave me admin access to your gallery. If you would like to do that again, I'll look to see what I can find.
Somewhere there's an out of date file that's being picked up that references mbstring, either by Coppermine software or PHP itself. The difficult bit is finding it.
The latest versions of Coppermine don't have mbstring in the code.
As has been said, an old plugin or theme might have this. You aren't using plugins or a non-standard theme but are there any of them still around in the directories ? Use your file transfer utility (WinSCP or similar) to check the dates on folders and files for old files.
Another way this could happen is if PHP itself is picking up old files when starting up. It will be useful to see what PHP thinks. You don't have the Admin menu so this will have to be created manually.
Put the following PHP file in your top level gallery directory and give it an obscure name for security reasons.
<?php
// Show the PHP configuration
phpinfo();
?>
Then run it using the web browser:
https://yourgallery/obscurename.php
You'll get a display like the following that I've truncated. Are there additional files being picked up and shown in the line I've highlighted with red arrows ?
Does "mbstring" appear anywhere on the page ? – use the "search on this page" feature of the web browser
php.png
Does the new server have Modsecurity enabled, if so disable it, or ask your host to disable it and see if it works.
Quote from: ron4mac on June 05, 2026, 07:42:00 PMAround 4 years ago you gave me admin access to your gallery. If you would like to do that again, I'll look to see what I can find.
We upgraded your status to admin.If you have any difficulty gaining access, please send us a message.
Thank you very much.
Quote from: 406man on June 06, 2026, 11:35:33 AMSomewhere there's an out of date file that's being picked up that references mbstring, either by Coppermine software or PHP itself. The difficult bit is finding it.
Thank you so very much. We conducted a "find" in our php settings and found mbstring had been selected by default when we upgraded our php settings for the entire server.
We removed that php setting and are now able to access the admin tools.
We appreciate all of the brain power you guys have.
Thank you again.
Respectfully
AmericanLegacies Staff
Quote from: Legacies on June 07, 2026, 05:13:20 AMWe removed that php setting and are now able to access the admin tools.
Glad you were able to resolve it!
Quote from: Legacies on June 03, 2026, 08:16:16 PMThank you very much for any assistance.
Vibe coding may be helpful here.
A method that has worked very well for me is to make a full backup, then create a ZIP archive containing all gallery files except the `/albums/` directory and upload it to ChatGPT together with a detailed description of the problem. Before uploading, make sure to remove or replace any database passwords, API keys, email credentials, or other sensitive information from configuration files.
Ask ChatGPT to investigate the issue and return only the files that need to be changed. This makes it much easier to compare the modified files with the originals and restore the backup if necessary.
Using this approach, I have already modernized several old Coppermine galleries based on CPG 1.4.* and 1.5.* that previously worked only with PHP 5.3. They now run on PHP 8.5 and also have search-engine-friendly URLs, various SEO improvements, mobile-friendly layouts, and much better indexing.
Of course, always test the modified files on a copy of the gallery first and keep a complete backup of both the files and the database.