PHP Warning: session_start(): Failed to read session data:

Hi @sparkyparks,

From the warning, it seems the site is currently running on an older PHP version (PHP 7.2).

Could you please confirm which PHP version you are currently using?

As a first step, I’d strongly recommend trying an update to a newer supported PHP version and then checking whether the warning still appears.

The warning itself seems related to PHP session handling on the server side rather than the actual backup process, so updating PHP may help resolve it.

Looking forward to your update.

Hi,

Thank you for clarifying.

That makes sense. If the site was recently changed from PHP 7.2 to PHP 8.2, the old session path may still be referenced somewhere on the server:

/var/cpanel/php/sessions/ea-php72

So this looks more like a PHP/session configuration issue after the PHP version switch, rather than a BackWPup backup issue.

Could you please ask your hosting provider to check and update the PHP session save path for PHP 8.2, and make sure it points to a valid writable session directory?

They should specifically check:

• session.save_path
• permissions of the session directory
• whether the site is still referencing the old ea-php72 session folder

Once the PHP session path is corrected, the warning should stop.