Problem

You open PHPMyadmin and you get this error:
phpmyadmin missing mbstring

Solution

It’s easy to fix. just type this at a prompt on the server:

sudo apt-get install php-mbstring

Then restart apache with:

sudo systemctl apache2 restart

Notes

Now, why oh why would this suddenly happen for no reason that I can think of?  I haven’t used PHPMyadmin in years on this server so it’s probably a package that got removed during an apt-get autoremove at some point but still. It’s obviously in use, why just automatically remove it.

Nothing in this job that I’m doing at the moment has been easy. The following posts have been written. I’ll explain what I’m doing very shortly.

• Windows 2019 product key failure.
• Connecting to Hyper-V from a non-domain joined PC.
• Connecting through an OpenVPN gateway on PFSense.
• Deprecating core commands.
• WordPress returns to install mode after migration.

I’ll give you a very brief idea of what I’m doing.
I’m spending too much on cloud hosting. I have several projects on the go. Most are aimed at promoting traditional Irish music.

• Ceol FM online streaming service. Promotes traditional Irish music around the world.
• Music at the Gate. Promotes traditional Irish music in Drogheda. I would love my children to grow up surrounded by Irish culture.
• Darragh Pipes. I love playing music. This promotes my own performances.

Then I also run this site, Computer Support Services and a few other websites from different servers as well.
It’s costing far too much.
So I’ve bought a reasonably powerful box, installed Hyper-V and I’m running everything off several virtual machines.
When I’ve had free time, I’ve been working on migrating everything across. But sites like Ceol FM provide additional functionality over and above just a simple website so migrating this functionality isn’t straight forward. Obviously hosting everything on server is tricky to do properly. Security needs to be a priority as does monitoring and bandwidth / resource control.