One of the most important pieces of information you should check if you’re migrating a website between hosts or servers is
What version of PHP am I currently running and what is on the opposing service?
If you have a PHP mismatch between systems, it is common that PHP errors or other similar issues can present themselves when loading the content. Thankfully finding this information out is quite simple by utilising a ‘PHP Info’ file.
How to find out which PHP version you are running
1. On your local machine, open Notepad (or your favourite text file editor).
2. On the first line, copy and paste the following:
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
3. Save the file as phpinfo.php (ensuring it’s not saved as a .txt or .rtf file).
4. Upload this new file to both the old and new server in the public_html location, or whichever location is your document root:
5. Browse to the phpinfo.php file on both servers. In some instances, you may need to utilise a Hosts file method to manually specify what server to look at. http://www.yoursite.com.au/phpinfo.php
6. Compare the versions and make sure all components match, often certain PHP Modules & Extensions are the most important.
7. Once done, Make sure you remove this file from both server instances once you have actioned your checks.