Good luck with that.
Rather than trying to backup via a plugin with a way out of date version of PHP, do this:
1. Access PHPMYADMIN from your hosting control panel and export the database.
2. Via FTP or the file manager app of your hosting control panel, download all of the files.
Zip both results together on your own computer and, bob’s your uncle, you have a backup.
Now, update your PHP version.
For each I get the message that the plugin “requires PHP version 5.6.0 with spl extension or greater and WordPress 3.9 or greater.” However, I do not want to update (I’m currently running 5.4.45) until I backup.
Just to explain Steven’s response a bit more, WordPress 5.6 itself (not just plugins) requires PHP 5.6, and even this is just about to be bumped up to PHP 7 soon… so your plan just won’t work: you simply can’t upgrade WordPress to 5.6 (irrespective of how you do your backup) while remaining on the ancient PHP version.
Thanks for the quick responses. This has gone way beyond my expertise so I think I’m going to need to hire someone. Thanks again.
This has gone way beyond my expertise so I think I’m going to need to hire someone.
Unless you’re running your own server, upgrading PHP is not something you can even do yourself: it’s your hosting company’s job.
And most hosting companies have multiple versions of PHP installed already, and you just have to toggle a switch in your hosting control panel to “upgrade” to a new version of PHP.
I’ll advise you to contact your host before going out to hire someone.
