Thanks I found the whole update was blocked by one piece of software that apparently no longer has some of its dependencies available, PHP PECL infobase I believe. I deleted it because it wasn't needed then the update succeeded.

BUT after the update none of my web forms work so I had to revert to the latest snapshot. It is so wonderful that PHP has decided to change how it's basic code functions every update. Backwards compatibility is for wimps and I so love to be psychologically tested to my breaking point every PHP update.

It has something to do with NULL value being passed to a function in the local part of my recaptcha script. I think that issue must start somewhere else in the many pages of code that I have processing forms but so far the only error I get from PHP is:
Deprecated: stripslashes(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/templates/recaptchalib.php on line 80

You are probably a good and helpful guy so this wisdom is not personal, and I would love it if you could pass this up hill.

I have been working in tech for about 30 years but I have so much to do that I only have a few days a year to focus on the 3 servers that were added to my job when our server person retired about 8 years ago.  For most of those 30 years most software makers understood well the concept of backwards compatibility, it was a big selling point but more than that it was understood as the only logical way to make software.

Without backwards compatibility you are breaking things that the people your product serves worked on very hard to make and you are breaking those things for zero logical reasons. PHP’s creators can easily choose to security patch the PHP code functions that people use right as they are, BUT instead of helping the people who use PHP they choose to break the code users make and need to maintain. I have heard people make the argument that they change the way code works so that the code has internal logical consistency, but you have to know you are not serving the code, you are serving the people who use the code, if you choose to change the way code functions for internal logical consistency you are hurting real hard-working people.
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I guarantee that a very significant number of those people are like me struggling to find time just to get the updates done at all making it that much more of challenge to debug code that up until the moment of upgrade was working perfectly.

You must see that the real-world effect of that is to make many people avoid updating PHP as long as possible and that makes overall internet security worse WORLDWIDE.

Sorry if I said this in any way that hurts you personally this is something beyond either of us that just needs to be said.
Thanks, Gary