Installation error: mautic/core-lib 7.0.0 requires ext-imap

[derwaldgeist]

As a PHP noob, I'm following the instructions to install Mautic using composer on my Mac M3.

However, running the composer install results in an error message (see below). I think for noobs like me, it would be worth mentioning that this "imap" extension is needed and how to install it (I looked in php.ini, but couldn't find anything about it there).

It's a bit frustrating to run into an error that quick.

After some research I saw that the library is not bundled with PHP anymore since PHP 8.4. Maybe that's why.

Digging deeper, the imap plugin tells me that I should use a PECL repository, which then tells me to use PIE instead. Pretty tough for a noob to understand all of this PHP-specific stuff, tbh.

And then I stumbled upon this:
https://php.watch/versions/8.4/imap-unbundled
which tells me that this library should better not be used. Hm.

When trying to install this extension, I landed on the PECL package's homepage, which only includes instructions for Debian or Ubuntu. So I'm quite stuck right now.

Creating a "mautic/recommended-project:^7.0" project at "./"
Installing mautic/recommended-project (7.0.0)
  - Downloading mautic/recommended-project (7.0.0)
  - Installing mautic/recommended-project (7.0.0): Extracting archive
Created project in /Users/tom/dev/marble/tests/mautic/.
Loading composer repositories with package information
Updating dependencies                                 
Your requirements could not be resolved to an installable set of packages.

  Problem 1
    - Root composer.json requires mautic/core-lib 7.0.0 -> satisfiable by mautic/core-lib[7.0.0].
    - mautic/core-lib 7.0.0 requires ext-imap * -> it is missing from your system. Install or enable PHP's imap extension.
  Problem 2
    - Root composer.json requires mautic/theme-welcome 7.0.0 -> satisfiable by mautic/theme-welcome[7.0.0].
    - mautic/core-lib 7.0.0 requires ext-imap * -> it is missing from your system. Install or enable PHP's imap extension.
    - mautic/theme-welcome 7.0.0 requires mautic/core-lib ^7.0 -> satisfiable by mautic/core-lib[7.0.0].

To enable extensions, verify that they are enabled in your .ini files:
    - /opt/homebrew/etc/php/8.5/php.ini
You can also run `php --ini` in a terminal to see which files are used by PHP in CLI mode.
Alternatively, you can run Composer with `--ignore-platform-req=ext-imap` to temporarily ignore these required extensions.

[derwaldgeist]

I downgraded php to 8.3 and enabled that "imap" plugin in php.ini.

However, that ran me into the next errors:

PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'imap' (tried: /opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap (dlopen(/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap, 0x0009): tried: '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap' (no such file), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap' (no such file), '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap' (no such file)), /opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so (dlopen(/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so, 0x0009): tried: '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so' (no such file), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so' (no such file), '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so' (no such file))) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'imap' (tried: /opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap (dlopen(/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap, 0x0009): tried: '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap' (no such file), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap' (no such file), '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap' (no such file)), /opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so (dlopen(/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so, 0x0009): tried: '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so' (no such file), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so' (no such file), '/opt/homebrew/lib/php/pecl/20230831/imap.so' (no such file))) in Unknown on line 0

I'm wondering if this composer setup even works on macOS?

[derwaldgeist]

Back to PHP 8.5.2, I learned that the pecl command is already there.

But his

pecl install imap

resulted in an error and 2 warnings:

Configuring extension
checking for IMAP support... yes, shared
checking for IMAP Kerberos support... yes
checking for IMAP SSL support... yes
checking for utf8_mime2text signature... new
checking for U8T_DECOMPOSE... no
configure: error: utf8_mime2text() has new signature, but U8T_CANONICAL is missing. This should not happen. Check config.log for additional information.

Warning: chdir(): No such file or directory (errno 2) in Builder.php on line 456
PHP Warning:  chdir(): No such file or directory (errno 2) in /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php/8.5.2/share/php/pear/PEAR/Builder.php on line 456

Warning: chdir(): No such file or directory (errno 2) in /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php/8.5.2/share/php/pear/PEAR/Builder.php on line 456
ERROR: `/private/tmp/pear/temp/imap/configure --with-php-config=/opt/homebrew/opt/php/bin/php-config --with-kerberos --with-imap-ssl' failed

[escopecz]

Mautic yet do not support PHP 8.5 because one dependency still does not support it. I'm have that in progress here:

mautic/mautic#15721

There is an issue with PHP 8.4 that is being discussed on Community Slack in the #docker channel. So the PHP version was downgraded to 8.3 in https://github.com/mautic/docker-mautic

[escopecz]

But if you want to run Mautic on MacOS then it's probably just for testing or development, right? In that case use DDEV. That's what all testers and developers are using: https://devdocs.mautic.org/en/5.x/development-environment/how_to_install_with_ddev.html

[derwaldgeist]

Thanks for the fast response, highly appreciated. I tried to implement things with PHP 8.3, but got stuck with the imap installation, as described above. That's why I had returned to 8.5. But good to know that 8.5 isn't supported yet and you're working on it.

Actually, we do not care about the PHP version at all, since only Mautic will be running on our server. The actually deployment will be on a EC2 machine (Ubuntu, if that works), but it would be nice to know how I can setup things locally on my Mac, since I wanted to test drive the installation and data migration there. It's a bit easier than doing it on a remote console directly.

Ah, just saw your additional message on DDEV, will have a look at this! Thanks!

[escopecz]

DDEV is used for development though. It has great environment and additional tools for it. And it can spin up by 1 command without installing and configuring mysql and so on. But sadly, it's not recommended for production. I'd recommend https://github.com/mautic/docker-mautic for that. There are Docker Compose examples that will let you run everything in Docker containers and you don't have to worry about dependencies.

[derwaldgeist]

Sound good, will look into that. Do you also have a recommendation about what to do about an existing database? We're on Mautic 3.1.2, and it might be a challenge to get it updated to the most recent version. Does it make sense to jump directly to 7, or would it be better to do things gradually (which would of course cause some downtime).

[escopecz]

Definitely gradually if we are talking M3. Firstly go to the latest 3.3.5 to make sure you get all the migrations. Then jump to the lasts M4, then to the latest M5 and then you'll be able to skip M6 and go directly to M7.

[derwaldgeist]

Thanks for the feedback, @escopecz, highy appreciated. Would you recommend M7 for production already, as it is brand-new (but LTS)?

[escopecz]

Good question. I leave that up to you whether you'd stay on M6 and wait a little for some polishing fixes or go directly to M7.

[derwaldgeist]

Well, in general, we tend to be pretty lazy with our updated and thus prefer the recent version. But I was wondering if M7 was already "stable enough". We don't have high demands, but still need some robustness.