Title: Plugin Activation Error – (Parse Error: syntax Error)
Last modified: March 15, 2019

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# Plugin Activation Error – (Parse Error: syntax Error)

 *  Resolved [flashfirexii](https://wordpress.org/support/users/flashfirexii/)
 * (@flashfirexii)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-activation-error-parse-error-syntax-error/)
 * Hi, I am hosting my website on WordPress with a business account, and I installed
   the Watson Plugin and tried to activate it. It gave me the error:
    Parse error:
   syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in /var/www/new2/wp-content/plugins/conversation-
   watson/includes/frontend.php on line 14
 * I tried downloading the API Rest plugin. I tried downloading the plugin as a 
   zip and then uploading it, but the file was 2.7 mb and the system was saying 
   it was too big to be uploaded. Then I manually moved the unzipped folder into
   the wp-content folder on my computer and then tinkered with the corrupted file(
   frontend.php).
 * None of these worked and I’m on a deadline so I would appreciate help as fast
   as possible.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Intela-bot Help](https://wordpress.org/support/users/intelahelp/)
 * (@intelahelp)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-activation-error-parse-error-syntax-error/#post-11324961)
 * Hello, [@flashfirexii](https://wordpress.org/support/users/flashfirexii/).
 * Thanks for reaching out to us. We’ve found the cause of this issue. The fix will
   be included in the nearest release. For now, upgrading to PHP 5.4 and higher 
   may work as a temporary workaround because the reason is in minor syntax incompatibility
   between PHP 5.3 and 5.4.
 *  Thread Starter [flashfirexii](https://wordpress.org/support/users/flashfirexii/)
 * (@flashfirexii)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-activation-error-parse-error-syntax-error/#post-11326226)
 * Thank you for this, could you give a link to someplace that I can download the
   newer version?
 *  Thread Starter [flashfirexii](https://wordpress.org/support/users/flashfirexii/)
 * (@flashfirexii)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-activation-error-parse-error-syntax-error/#post-11327969)
 * Hi, I tried activating the Watson Plugin again, but this time i got the following
   error:
    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in /var/www/new2/wp-content/
   plugins/conversation-watson/includes/api.php on line 587 Help please?
 *  Plugin Author [Intela-bot Help](https://wordpress.org/support/users/intelahelp/)
 * (@intelahelp)
 * [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-activation-error-parse-error-syntax-error/#post-11352065)
 * Fixed with plugin update

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Plugin Activation Error – (Parse Error: syntax Error)’ is closed to new
replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/conversation-watson/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=1684465)
 * [Chatbot with IBM watsonx Assistant](https://wordpress.org/plugins/conversation-watson/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/conversation-watson/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/conversation-watson/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/conversation-watson/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/conversation-watson/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/conversation-watson/reviews/)

## Tags

 * [activation error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/activation-error/)
 * [fatal error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/fatal-error/)
 * [syntax error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/syntax-error/)

 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Intela-bot Help](https://wordpress.org/support/users/intelahelp/)
 * Last activity: [7 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-activation-error-parse-error-syntax-error/#post-11352065)
 * Status: resolved