iotrasnet

[iotrasnet]

June 20, 2026 at 15:21 in reply to: Cannot delete comments – getting 500 error

Hi,

We investigated the issue properly and found that changing the whole server to PHP 7.x was not the real fix.

The forum is running phpBB 3.3.15 on PHP 8.3. The 500 error when clicking the delete “X” was caused by a PHP 8+ fatal ValueError in phpBB’s language system:

forum/phpbb/language/language.php:372
vsprintf(): The arguments array must contain 1 items, 0 given

The broken path was the delete confirmation template:

confirm_delete_body.html

It was calling the Romanian language keys without passing a numeric argument, while the Romanian language file had pluralized strings with %1$d placeholders:

DELETE_POST_PERMANENTLY
DELETE_TOPIC_PERMANENTLY

On PHP 7 this likely behaved as a warning, but on PHP 8.3 it becomes fatal.

We fixed it by correcting the Romanian language strings so they no longer require %1$d in that delete confirmation context, then cleared the phpBB cache. The delete button now works without downgrading PHP.

So the issue was not “PHP 8 cannot run the forum”, but a PHP 8 compatibility problem in the language/template handling. You may want to update the theme/language pack so it is fully PHP 8 compatible.

[iotrasnet]

May 12, 2026 at 14:12 in reply to: Cannot delete comments – getting 500 error

😀

[iotrasnet]

April 12, 2026 at 23:49 in reply to: Cannot delete comments – getting 500 error

anyone ?