PHP 8.4 Constant E_STRICT is deprecated

[evoracer]

After an Update from Debian bookworm (php8.3) to Debian trixie (php8.4) i got 6 of these error Messages per second in my apache error log

[Tue Nov 25 22:48:00.005018 2025] [php:info] [pid 1092:tid 1092] [client ::1:55076] PHP Deprecated:  Constant E_STRICT is deprecated in /var/www/stromzaehler/vendor/symfony/error-handler/ErrorHandler.php on line 58
[Tue Nov 25 22:48:00.005050 2025] [php:info] [pid 1092:tid 1092] [client ::1:55076] PHP Deprecated:  Constant E_STRICT is deprecated in /var/www/stromzaehler/vendor/symfony/error-handler/ErrorHandler.php on line 76

So my apache error log is about 200M per day full of these warnings.

[r00t-]

deprecation warnings are not logged by default on debian,

$ grep error_reporting /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini
; error_reporting
error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT

but our code, at the same time as setting E_STRICT, re-sets E_DEPRECATED 🤦

// enable strict error reporting
error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);

https://github.com/volkszaehler/volkszaehler.org/blob/master/lib/bootstrap.php#L45

[r00t-]

maybe the best fix would be to not mess with error_reporting at all and leave it at the system defaults?

[evoracer]

Yes, I think the best fix is ​​to remove the E_Strict error level and use the system settings. Especially since E_Strict was completely removed in PHP 8.4.
https://www.php.net/manual/en/errorfunc.constants.php#constant.e-strict

[evoracer]

I'm not sure, but could the error message be coming from the symfony dependency in the composer.json file? Perhaps the dependency needs to be updated?
My composer.lock regarding symfony/error-handler

 "name": "symfony/error-handler",
            "version": "v6.3.12",
            "source": {
                "type": "git",
                "url": "https://github.com/symfony/error-handler.git",
                "reference": "93a8400a7eaaaf385b2d6f71e30e064baa639629"
            },

[evoracer]

@r00t- Is it possible that you update the dependencies? Unfortunately, your fix from the pull request does not solve the problem.

[jahir]

@evoracer : Could you show the relevant lines in your ErrorHandler.php? I don't have E_STRICT in mine. According to composer.lock my symfony/error-handler is also on v6.3.12 (according to my composer.lock).

Apart from that, @r00t- is probably right about not messing with error-reporting. It helps to early detect breaking changes, so we can prepare for that in time, but that's nothing that a common user should bother.

[evoracer]

@jahir : https://github.com/symfony/error-handler/blob/6.3/ErrorHandler.php

Line 58
\E_STRICT => 'Runtime Notice',
and
Line 76
\E_STRICT => [null, LogLevel::WARNING],

[jahir]

@evoracer sorry, my bad, it seems I have already patched the ErrorHandler file locally.
E_STRICT seems to have gone in symfony/error-handler 6.4, which I tried to update on, but it's not straight forward due to some other paackages dependancies. Speaking of which, we are quite outdated and I guess it's quite some work to get us on recent versions. Unfortunately, my time is tight (and being no symfony guy make the process even more time consuming) and nobody else seems to be available, it could be a while...

[evoracer]

@jahir Thanks for the reply. Did you simply remove the two affected lines locally? Can you post a diff from your local ErrorHandler.php and the original one?

Could you please reopen the ticket? The actual bug itself is still unresolved.

I understand that dependency updates can be annoying and time-consuming. When you say it can take a while what timeframe are we talking about? Weeks, months or even years?

I need to assess for myself whether it's worth waiting or if dependencies are no longer being updated I personally have to consider the project as dead. Since security patches will no longer be included and future PHP versions might not be fully supported.

Thank you very much for your honest answer and all the work you've done on the project. I think the current feature set is really great and fulfills exactly what I need.

[jahir]

@evoracer Yes, just removed the offending lines was sufficient.

The timeframe for a dependency is (at least) months. I'm not happy with the situation myself (not only because it runs on my own system), but there's not much I can do about that.
Question is also, even if we (I) get that done, what happens after that. When nobody puts any effort in this project, we will have the same situation again. And this is only maintenance...

[r00t-]

@evoracer:

@r00t- Is it possible that you update the dependencies? Unfortunately, your fix from the pull request does not solve the problem.

feel free to open a pull request.