You may have seen an email from 1and1 or noticed a notification in your control panel related to extended support for PHP 5.2 ,5.4, 5.5.
If you have then you are probably paying extra for it, but you probably don’t need it.
Update Note: PHP 5.5 is now no longer supported as per this notification from 1and 1.
You will need to upgrade your PHP package to 7.0. The procedure below is still valid.
Originally I thought all I needed to do was to upgrade my sites to use a newer version of PHP , but that isn’t enough.
You will also need to go through a cancellation process.
The following will take you through the process of checking and changing your PHP version, and cancelling extended support for PHP version 5.2,5.4,5.5 and soon probably PHP 5.6
You do this by going to PHP Settings under the Manage WebSpace section.
You will see a list of you domains and the current version they are running a green box means that the version is OK.
If you need to update then select the domain and click on the update version button.
Currently 1and1 recommends moving to PHP 5.6 ( now PHP 7).
You should be safe to move to this version provided that your WordPress Sites are up to date.
Once all of you domains (even those you aren’t using) are moved off PHP 5.2 (5.4,5.5) you can cancel the extended support.
You should see a link in the PHP settings that takes you to the cancellation page.
The cancellation is a little long winded, and you need to be careful that you don’t cancel your hosting package.
Instead what you want to do is to cancel a package option.
The fist step is to select the package by clicking the package name
Now click the individual item radio button and then click Next.
Select the PHP 5.2 (5.4, 5.5) Extended support option and as soon as possible for the cancellation time and click Next.
You will get a confirmation screen click next to continue
You get another screen telling you that you will need to confirm the cancellation by clicking a link in an email that they will send, click next to continue.
This is all you need to do from the control panel.
Now go to your mailbox associated with your 1and1 account and locate the email that they have sent.
You should receive another email confirming the cancellation.
Finished!
You can check the cancellation status from the 1and1 control panel by clicking the cancellation link.
However I didn’t find this particularly informative.
Summary
If your WordPress sites are up to date and provided you have configured your domains to use an newer PHP version then you can cancel support for PHP version 5.2 (5.4,5.5).
If you don’t then you will be paying a considerable premium for something that you don’t need and aren’t using.
Note: Currently (Feb 2017) the recommended PHP version is PHP 7
Related Tutorials and Resources:
- 1and1 UK Hosting Packages -Review
- Installing WordPress on 1and1 Hosting
- WordPress stuck in Maintenance Mode
- Overview of WordPress and PHP versions