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Website hosted in Plesk is unavailable: Invalid command 'php_flag' or 'php_value'

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Renan Moreira
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Plesk for Linux kb: technical ABT: Group A

Applicable to:

  • Plesk for Linux

Symptoms

  • A website or Plesk site preview is inaccessible with any of the following errors:

    CONFIG_TEXT: 500 internal server error

    CONFIG_TEXT: 503 Invalid command 'php_flag', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration.

  • The following error message is shown on the Home page in Plesk:

    PLESK_ERROR: Unable to generate the web server configuration file on the host example.com because of the following errors:
    Template_Exception: AH00526: Syntax error on line 2 of /var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/conf/vhost.conf:
    Invalid command 'php_flag', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

Cause

Site code contains unsupported directives: PHP directives php_flag and php_value  that are not supported in modern PHP versions. They were supported in PHP as Apache module only (mod_php Apache module) that is now deprecated as it is considered outdated and insecure.

Resolution

  1. Login to Plesk

  2. Go to Domains > example.com > File Manager and open .htaccess file for editing.

    Note: .htaccess file may be located in domain subdirectories.

  3. Comment out php_flag and php_value lines (put sign # at the beginning of the line) or remove completely:

    Screenshot-2017-10-23_Code_Editor_example_com_httpdocs_htaccess_-_Plesk_Onyx_17_5_3.png

  4. Click OK to apply the changes.

  5. Open Domain > example.com > PHP Settings and add directives from step #3 in predefined parameters (like, post_max_size) or in the Additional configuration directives field. Example of an additional directives:

    CONFIG_TEXT: display_startup_error on
    max_input_vars = 2000
    html_errors on
    allow_call_time_pass_reference 1
    magic_quotes_gpc on


    Note: For PHP directives use php.ini syntax. Do not use php_flag and php_value prefix.

Comments

2 comments

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    turgut kalfaoglu

    Couldn't this be caused by the apache server configuration, for example allowoverrides etc?

     

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  • Avatar
    Michel vd Lingen

    Would be great if there was a CLI command to bulk change the affected domains.
    For both in .htaccess and under Additional configuration directives.

    As it time consuming doing this by hand when you handle a ton of migrations.

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