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In order to follow this guide, you should have a server with Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS installed with 1GB minimal memory, 10GB minimal hard drive, access to sudo privileges and phpMyAdmin.
Since the release of Ubuntu 18.04 and other Linux distros, many people have been having compatibility issues with PHP 7.2 and phpMyAdmin 4.6 and above. In this article, we will manually download and install the latest version of phpMyAdmin to resolve these issues.
1. Back up phpMyAdmin
You should back up your current phpMyAdmin folder by renaming it.
sudo mv /usr/share/phpmyadmin/ /usr/share/phpmyadmin.bak
Create a new phpMyAdmin folder
sudo mkdir /usr/share/phpmyadmin/
Change to directory
cd /usr/share/phpmyadmin/
2. Download and Extract phpMyAdmin
Visit the phpMyAdmin download page and look for the .tar.gz URL and download it using wget. In this guide, we are using version 5.0.1. If a later version is now available, make sure to change the commands below to match (and let me know in the comments so I can update the guide ๐).
sudo wget https://files.phpmyadmin.net/phpMyAdmin/5.0.2/phpMyAdmin-5.0.2-all-languages.zip
Now extract, install unzip if you don’t have it.
sudo apt install unzip
unzip phpMyAdmin-5.0.2-all-languages.zip
You should see a new folder “phpMyAdmin-5.0.2-all-languages”
We want to move the contents of the above folder to /usr/share/phpmyadmin
sudo mv phpMyAdmin-5.0.2-all-languages/* /usr/share/phpmyadmin
You can now log back into phpMyAdmin and check the current version. You may also see two errors:
3. Fix common errors
If you are seeing the errors in red on the screenshot below:
We’ll need to run the commands below to fix the errors above in red on the screenshot.
cd /usr/share/phpmyadmin/
mkdir tmp && chmod 777 tmp
You may also see an error “The configuration file now needs a secret passphrase (blowfish_secret)”. The blowfish secret is used by phpMyAdmin for cookie authentication.
sudo nano /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/vendor_config.php
Press CTRL + W and search for CONFIG_DIR
Change line to:
define('CONFIG_DIR', '/etc/phpmyadmin/');
Save file and exit. (Press CTRL + X, press Y and then press ENTER).
Now log back into phpMyAdmin and ensure the errors are gone.
4. Cleanup
You can now delete the tar.gz file and the empty folder.
sudo rm /usr/share/phpmyadmin/phpMyAdmin-5.0.2-all-languages.zip
sudo rm -rf /usr/share/phpmyadmin/phpMyAdmin-5.0.2-all-languages
And if youโre certain your new phpMyAdmin install is working correctly you can delete the backup folder.
sudo rm -rf /usr/share/phpmyadmin.bak
Learn here “How to Install phpMyAdmin with Nginx on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS”