After upgrading from 7.7.x to 7.8.31 logins fail

I’m in the process of trying to upgrade an old installation to a current version (most recent 7 or 8). When I did 7.7 to 7.8 update from the update wizard web page, I immediately got a ‘You have been logged out because your session has expired’ and any attempts to login now fail with that and ‘You must specify a valid username and password.’

This is true for users or admin logins. I’m using a password manager so passwords haven’t changed. Also, I tried different browsers/ff containers. The browser cache should not be a issue.

The pertinent sugarcrm log error looks to be:
Thu Dec 8 23:01:51 2022 [2643684][-none-][FATAL] SECURITY: User authentication for mikeb failed
Thu Dec 8 23:01:51 2022 [2643684][-none-][FATAL] FAILED LOGIN:attempts[1] - mikeb

While accurate, it doesn’t really add much. I also got this from the apache logs. It looks to be related but it’s unclear to me if it’s the cause and what the fix would be if so.

[:error] [pid 2643684] [client ip addr] PHP Warning: mysqli_real_escape_string() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli, string given in /htdocs/include/database/MysqlManager.php on line 463, referer: no-links-for-me /index.php?action=Login&module=Users
[:error] [pid 2643684] [client ip addr] PHP Warning: mysqli_real_escape_string() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli, boolean given in /htdocs/include/database/MysqlManager.php on line 463, referer: no-links-for-me /index.php?action=Login&module=Users
[:error] [pid 2643684] [client ip addr] PHP Warning: mysqli_real_escape_string() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli, string given in /htdocs/include/database/MysqlManager.php on line 463, referer: no-links-for-me /index.php?action=Login&module=Users

If anyone has a suggestion, it would be appreciated, thanks!

It could be in an issue of incomaptible version of PHP with your SuiteCRM.
Please check Compatibility Matrix.

Thanks for the response. It’s using PHP 5.6 so should work on both these versions. But by going back to my original starting point and doing more upgrades in between versions, I’ve been able to get it to 7.11.23 without running into this issue again. So I don’t really know the cause, but the solution was doing less jumps in versions.

Ironically?, coincidentally anyway, now I am running into a php problem. I.e., on attempts to upgrade past php5.6 to any of php7.0-7.4, I end up with a blank website. But since it’s a different problem, I’ll start a different thread if I can’t figure it out.