PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function json_decode()

Question

Apache is logging PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function json_decode(). After some googling, it seems this problem is a result of not having the latest version of php. Oddly, running php --version ouputs

PHP 5.5.1-2+debphp.org~precise+2 (cli) (built: Aug  6 2013 10:49:43) 
Copyright (c) 1997-2013 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.5.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2013 Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.0.2-dev, Copyright (c) 1999-2013, by Zend Technologies
    with Xdebug v2.2.3, Copyright (c) 2002-2013, by Derick Rethans

Clearly showing that my php version is greater than 5.1.

Any ideas as to what could cause this, or the steps to take to find out?

EDIT: The result of a script echoing phpversion is 5.5.1-2+debphp.org~precise

EDIT: The result of phpinfo() is also PHP Version 5.5.1-2+debphp.org~precise+2

Furthermore, in the phpinfo(), it lists the module JSON and the module authors (Omar Kilani, Scott MacVicar).

Check the `disable_functions` ini directive to see if `json_decode` is in that list — Orangepill, Aug 14 '13 at 18:34
`disable_functions = pcntl_alarm,pcntl_fork,pcntl_waitpid,pcntl_wait,pcntl_wifexited,pcntl_wifstopped,pcntl_wifsignaled,pcntl_wexitstatus,pcntl_wtermsig,pcntl_wstopsig,pcntl_signal,pcntl_signal_dispatch,pcntl_ge\ t_last_error,pcntl_strerror,pcntl_sigprocmask,pcntl_sigwaitinfo,pcntl_sigtimedwait,pcntl_exec,pcntl_getpriority,pcntl_setpriority, ` — MirroredFate, Aug 14 '13 at 18:39
Ubuntu 12.04 has a package: `php-services-json`. Maybe this helps... — jgb, Aug 14 '13 at 18:40
@jgb That's the PEAR package Services_Json. Which is also quite encompassing, parses a bit Javascript, not just JSON even. But there are other userland implementations directly reimplementing `json_decode`. — mario, Aug 14 '13 at 18:44

jszobody · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-13T21:03:21.467

366

Using Ubuntu?

Short answer:

sudo apt-get install php7.2-json

(or php7.1-json or php5-json depending on the PHP version you're running)

Then of course make sure you restart Apache:

sudo service apache2 restart

Or if you are using PHP-FPM:

sudo service php7.2-fpm restart

(Or php7.1-fpm or php5-fpm)

Explanation

Debian has removed the previous JSON extension as of PHP 5.5rc2 due to a license conflict.

The JSON license has a clause which states:

The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

This causes a problem with Free Software Foundation's definition of free software which states:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

FSF goes on to specifically list the JSON license as nonfree.

Yes it seems a bit silly. Nevertheless Debian has removed the non-compliant JSON extension, and instead offered a replacement extension that is functionally equivalent.

To be clear: PHP itself has NOT removed JSON, it's still in master. This is a distro / package manager issue.

Rasmus makes it pretty clear:

We have not removed json and we will never release a version of php without json support built in. Any changes in 5.5 is due to whatever distro packaging you are using which we have no control over.

More details

http://iteration99.com/2013/php-json-licensing-and-php-5-5/

http://liorkaplan.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/bye-bye-non-free-php-json-extension/

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=63520

http://philsturgeon.co.uk/blog/2013/08/fud-cracker-php-55-never-lost-json-support

edited Feb 13 '18 at 21:03

answered Aug 14 '13 at 18:38

jszobody

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I came back to mention that it appears as if `5.5.0` is fine with `JSON`, it is only `5.5.1` that breaks. – MirroredFate Aug 16 '13 at 19:35
2

5.5.3 does not have it neither (Ubuntu 13.10) – Luis Lobo Borobia Oct 18 '13 at 19:14
9

Don't forget to restart apache after installing json module with the command Chris mentioned. – Pavel Nov 12 '13 at 16:23
1

If php-json were a dependency of php-common this would all go away...https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1280030 ...please vote if this was a problem for you. – rickfoosusa Feb 14 '14 at 00:23
Ever wonder who defines this "Evil" here? And you'd use software that may or may not allow the use you put it to? Me? I wouldn't. – Jürgen A. Erhard Mar 25 '14 at 07:26
21

Does anyone find it ironically *"evil"* that this software licensing exclusion cost me an hour of research time? – recursion.ninja May 23 '14 at 19:04
still didn't work, I had to remove and reinstall php5-fpm + extensions (ubuntu 14, PHP 5.5.9-1ubuntu4.5) – E Ciotti Jan 23 '15 at 10:38
I just spent a HOURS debugging my php code! Are you kidding me with this... FML – JRam13 Feb 10 '15 at 21:50
Same in FreeBSD: Use `pkg install php56-json` – gies0r Jan 23 '17 at 18:58

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 24 '14 at 19:51

13

With Ubuntu :

sudo apt-get install php5-json
sudo service php5-fpm restart

edited Mar 24 '14 at 19:51

Maxime Lorant

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answered Jan 11 '14 at 21:54

David

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What about `apt-get install php7.2-json` for 7.2. I tried this but still not working. Giving me error on laravel app ```php RuntimeException PHP's json extension is required to use Monolog's NormalizerFormatter ``` – Smit Patel Jun 30 '19 at 02:26

milkovsky · Answer 3 · 2014-03-11T23:32:02.190

8

Solution for LAMP users:

apt-get install php5-json
service apache2 restart

Source

edited Mar 11 '14 at 23:32

answered Feb 20 '14 at 11:10

milkovsky

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If a restart fails to solve the error, kill the apache2 processes and start: sudo pkill apache2; service apache2 start – xilef Oct 24 '14 at 08:09

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 28 '21 at 09:20

8

As a RHEL 8 user, this was fixed with:

yum install php-json

And then reloading nginx and php-fpm. So basically the json libraries where missing from the default php install.

This should also work on CENTOS 8.

answered Apr 28 '21 at 09:20

kintsukuroi

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score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 23 '17 at 21:51

4

If you're using phpbrew try to install json extension to fix error with undefined function json_decode():

phpbrew ext install json

answered Jun 23 '17 at 21:51

yesnik

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score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 25 '17 at 03:55

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I have the same question: PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function json_decode(), but I run php under cygwin on Windows. When I run php -m, I found that there is no json module installed. So I run cygwin setup.exe again, check json package from the configuration interface, and the problem is solved.

edited Jun 25 '17 at 03:55

d-_-b

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answered May 10 '16 at 14:35

Rafy

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or (from the command line): `apt-cyg install php-json` -- see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45286337/how-to-install-apt-cyg-for-cygwin for details on installing apt-cyg – Orwellophile Jan 07 '23 at 20:21

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 16 '17 at 10:37

2

The same issue with 7.1

apt-get install php7.1-json sudo nano /etc/php/7.1/mods-available/json.ini

Add json.so to the new file
Add the appropriate sym link under conf.d
Restart apache2 service (if needed)

answered May 16 '17 at 10:37

Carl Hinton

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 29 '16 at 11:46

1

The module was install but symbolic link was not in /etc/php5/cli/conf.d

answered Jul 29 '16 at 11:46

NicoMinsk

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 28 '17 at 06:38

you might also consider avoiding the core PHP module altogether.

It is quite common to use the guzzle json tools as a library in PHP apps these days. If your app is a composer app, it is trivial to include them as a part of a composer build. The guzzle tool, as a library, would be a turnkey replacement for the json tool, if you tell PHP to autoinclude the tool.

http://docs.guzzlephp.org/en/stable/search.html?q=json_encode#

http://apigen.juzna.cz/doc/guzzle/guzzle/function-GuzzleHttp.json_decode.html

Guzzle's json_decode is [using php's json_decode](http://apigen.juzna.cz/doc/guzzle/guzzle/source-function-GuzzleHttp.json_decode.html#287-310) with additional error check, so your answer is invalid — Mike Doe, Nov 29 '18 at 07:50

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 10 '19 at 16:24

CENTOS

Scene

I installed PHP in Centos Docker, this is my DockerFile:

FROM centos:7.6.1810

LABEL maintainer="teran.a.joan@gmail.com"

RUN yum install httpd-2.4.6-88.el7.centos -y
RUN rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
RUN rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm
RUN yum install php72w -y
ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/sbin/httpd", "-D", "FOREGROUND"]

The app returned the same error with json_decode and json_encode

Resolution

Install PHP Common that has json_encode and json_decode

yum install -y php72w-common-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64

How to find the resolution?

I have another Docker File what build the container for the API and it has the order to install php-mysql client:

yum install php72w-mysql.x86_64 -y

If i use these image to mount the app, the json_encode and json_decode works!! Ok..... What dependencies does this have?

[root@c023b46b720c etc]# yum install php72w-mysql.x86_64
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, ovl
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: mirror.gtdinternet.com
 * epel: mirror.globo.com
 * extras: linorg.usp.br
 * updates: mirror.gtdinternet.com
 * webtatic: us-east.repo.webtatic.com
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package php72w-mysql.x86_64 0:7.2.14-1.w7 will be installed
--> Processing Dependency: php72w-pdo(x86-64) for package: php72w-mysql-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.18(libmysqlclient_18)(64bit) for package: php72w-mysql-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.18()(64bit) for package: php72w-mysql-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64
--> Running transaction check
---> Package mariadb-libs.x86_64 1:5.5.60-1.el7_5 will be installed
---> Package php72w-pdo.x86_64 0:7.2.14-1.w7 will be installed
--> Processing Dependency: php72w-common(x86-64) = 7.2.14-1.w7 for package: php72w-pdo-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64
--> Running transaction check
---> Package php72w-common.x86_64 0:7.2.14-1.w7 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

========================================================================================================
 Package                   Arch               Version                        Repository            Size
========================================================================================================
Installing:
 php72w-mysql              x86_64             7.2.14-1.w7                    webtatic              82 k
Installing for dependencies:
 mariadb-libs              x86_64             1:5.5.60-1.el7_5               base                 758 k
 php72w-common             x86_64             7.2.14-1.w7                    webtatic             1.3 M
 php72w-pdo                x86_64             7.2.14-1.w7                    webtatic              89 k

Transaction Summary
========================================================================================================
Install  1 Package (+3 Dependent packages)

Total download size: 2.2 M
Installed size: 17 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y
Downloading packages:
(1/4): mariadb-libs-5.5.60-1.el7_5.x86_64.rpm                                    | 758 kB  00:00:00     
(2/4): php72w-mysql-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64.rpm                                       |  82 kB  00:00:01     
(3/4): php72w-pdo-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64.rpm                                         |  89 kB  00:00:01     
(4/4): php72w-common-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64.rpm                                      | 1.3 MB  00:00:06     
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                                                   336 kB/s | 2.2 MB  00:00:06     
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
  Installing : 1:mariadb-libs-5.5.60-1.el7_5.x86_64                                                 1/4 
  Installing : php72w-common-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64                                                     2/4 
  Installing : php72w-pdo-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64                                                        3/4 
  Installing : php72w-mysql-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64                                                      4/4 
  Verifying  : php72w-common-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64                                                     1/4 
  Verifying  : 1:mariadb-libs-5.5.60-1.el7_5.x86_64                                                 2/4 
  Verifying  : php72w-pdo-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64                                                        3/4 
  Verifying  : php72w-mysql-7.2.14-1.w7.x86_64                                                      4/4 

Installed:
  php72w-mysql.x86_64 0:7.2.14-1.w7                                                                     

Dependency Installed:
  mariadb-libs.x86_64 1:5.5.60-1.el7_5                php72w-common.x86_64 0:7.2.14-1.w7               
  php72w-pdo.x86_64 0:7.2.14-1.w7                    

Complete!

Yes! Inside the dependences is the common packages. I Installed it into my other container and it works! After, i put de directive into DockerFile, Git commit!! Git Tag!!!! Git Push!!!! Ready!

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 30 '22 at 21:33

cPanel

Go to MultiPHP INI Editor and select the Editor Mode tab, enter the following to enable JSON extensions:

extension=json.so

Or, if you have an existing php.ini file in your root directory, check if this extension is listed and make sure it's not commented out (preceded by semi-colon).