Portal stopped loading, getting a DateTime::__construct() er

[random_rodder]

Your Portal Version: 2.1.0-rc2
Your phpBB Type: Standard phpBB3
MODs installed: Yes
Your knowledge: Beginner
Boardlink: http://ww.tandycoco.com/forum

What have you done before the problem was there?
Upgraded phpBB from 3.0.12 to 3.0.3, AFTER removing all previous MODs.
Modified the template colours.css file to achieve the color scheme for my forum.
After upgrade, Board3 Portal was reinstalled as an extension. phpBB Pages, Board Announcements and Breadcrumb Menu extensions were also installed.

What have you already tryed to solve the problem?
Disabling all other extensions and Google searching for the problem with no results. Also disabled Board3 Portal, cleared the data, and re-enabled Board3 Portal and still am given the same error.

Description and Message
After upgrade, portal was reinstalled as an extension, phpBB Pages, Board Announcements and Breadcrumb Menu extensions were also installed.
Everything was fine and all extensions were working as expected. Earlier today, I installed the TinyMCE editor for phpBB Pages - forum and Portal still worked fine.

Then, after a few hours I now get the following error when trying to access the Portal:

DateTime::__construct(): Failed to parse time string (@) at position 0 (@): Unexpected character


Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am NOT a PHP expert...


Thanks,

random_rodder

[Marc]

Do you maybe have an extended error log for your server that displays the line and file this error occurs at?

[random_rodder]

Hi Marc,

No, the server logs show no errors. The forum itself displays the date-time just fine with no issues. The portal page is the only page that fails with the DateTime() error.



Thanks,

Brian

[Marc]

Could you check if disabling the birthday module or user menu for the portal in the ACP solves the issue?

[random_rodder]

Disabled both modules, purged the cache and the problem remains.

[Marc]

Please try to disable modules step by step and check if the error disappears. Without the location of where the error is thrown it's kind of hard to figure this out any other way.

[random_rodder]

Okay, I pared the portal down to the following configuration:

Left Column | Center Column | Right Column
New Members | Welcome Message | User Menu


When I did that, the portal came back up. When I tried to add the Latest News Module to the center column, I ended up with the same error.

[random_rodder]

Another update, in the Latest News settings, if you select 'No" to:

Sort in order to the newest posts:
When activated, the newest will be sorted in order to the newest posts. When deactivated, the news will be sorted in order to the newest topic.


The portal failed with that error in the title. If you select Yes, the portal works.

[Marc]

I'm still unable to produce why this is happening exactly. This is probably connected to some corrupted database row. I'll try to narrow this down to a database column that should cause the mentioned issue.

[buio]

Hi Mark, I've just installed the portal and I have the same problem.
DateTime::__construct(): Failed to parse time string (@) at position 0 (@): Unexpected character

Have you found a solution for that?

[Marc]

Please take a look at the proposed fix in phpBB that should prevent something like this from happening in the future:
https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb/pull/4222

[buio]

That solved the problem, thank you!