Tried to install Composer Preview extensions, broke my install (v1.8.x)

aarlof

The issue

New 3 day install of Flarum, everything has been awesome. Today I was looking for an extension to provide a preview of a new discussion. Tried installing the zerosonesfun composer preview extension, it failed, then I tried to install the dhtml/composer preview extension.
I accidentally pasted the dhtml/composer code into the activation field without deleting the zerosonesfun activation code. System threw an error, mentioned viewing storage/logs/composer for information, then my whole site went down.

Little before this, I installed the PWA extension, enabled it, looked like too much to think about at the moment so i disbaled it.

Here is my latest log file from right after the crash, found in /storage/logs/composer (linked on my google drive)
Direct download:
Docs link (viewable in browser): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tk8-7CJih3Q3xZol7fy33FRWRmfPMr8smbGY7KmSuR8/edit?usp=sharing

Flarum information

Flarum version 1.8 (current version, installed like 3 days ago)

Not sure what the "php flarum info" is, can't find a file in the site directly except the "flarum" file with no extension

Post your output of php flarum info here. Without this information providing support will take longer!

KBExit

aarlof php flarum info

That's a command for composer.
cd to your installation root and run it. It'll spit out information for your instance to share.

aarlof

enabled display errors on my server's PHP.ini, reloaded, got this (following the troubleshoot guide). Appears the autoload.php file was deleted during one of the extension installations, probably zerosonesfun cuz it threw an error saying check /storage/logs/composer.

Warning: require(/home3/hxiplomy/public_html/neostalgiatoys.com/talk/vendor/autoload.php): Failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home3/hxiplomy/public_html/neostalgiatoys.com/talk/site.php on line 22

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Failed opening required /home3/hxiplomy/public_html/neostalgiatoys.com/talk/vendor/autoload.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php83/root/usr/share/pear') in /home3/hxiplomy/public_html/neostalgiatoys.com/talk/site.php:22 Stack trace: #0 /home3/hxiplomy/public_html/neostalgiatoys.com/talk/public/index.php(10): require() #1 {main} thrown in /home3/hxiplomy/public_html/neostalgiatoys.com/talk/site.php on line 22

aarlof

So turns out zerosonesfun composer extension broke the install. Didn't realize it was abandoned till too late. Searching the forum surfaced this post, which suggested running a command to uninstall the extension:

composer remove zerosonesfun/composer-preview

This cleared the extension and enabled the site to relaunch. Running the audit command surfaced a few other outdated extensions too…
Removing the extension (web UI terminal via my webhost's Cpanel tools)

composer audit

The outdated extensions on my install… Should I delete these or leave them as-is?

luceos

aarlof Should I delete these or leave them as-is?

You can leave them as is. It's a developer warning really.

Glad you figured it out with the extension. Your discussion was held up in the moderation queue, hence the lack of answers.

aarlof

KBExit This is good to know, thanks! Might help someone else in the future too.

clarkwinkelmann

KBExit That's a command for composer.

Technically, it has nothing to do with Composer. But it's run in the same place and same ways as Composer commands.

The php flarum info is a custom Flarum command that gathers information about the server and forum. One thing it does is read the Composer package manifest to obtain the version number of installed packages, but it does so without calling any Composer command, instead directly accessing the files that contain this information on the disk.

If the composer [...] executable is corrupted or missing, you will still be able to run php flarum [...] commands.