title: PHP Deprecated errors won't disappear on WordPress Dashboard
body: <p>TL;DR : Upgraded PHP on our server which caused a bunch of Deprecated errors to appear in WordPress, tried a number of fixes but the errors won't go away.</p>
  
  <p>PHP Version: 5.3.10
  WordPress Version: 3.3.2</p>
  
  <p>I have a WordPress installation that has been up and running for a little while now, with no complaint.</p>
  
  <p>This week, we upgraded PHP on the server to 5.3.10, after the update, the WordPress Dashboard began filling up with errors like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/random/public_html/wp-includes/class-simplepie.php on line 738
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>A large number (I suspect 116) of errors like this (each on a different line) appear in </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Incoming Links</li>
  <li>WordPress Blog</li>
  <li>Plugins</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>As advised by a number of posts around the WordPress forums, I disabled error reporting both at a file level (by adding error_reporting(0); to the top of wp-config.php and/or other files) and using PHP.ini. Phpinfo confirms that error_reporting = 0.</p>
  
  <p>This had no effect, with the warnings still showing up on the dashboard.</p>
  
  <p>I tried disabling all of my plugins and reverting to the default theme (with a mind to enable each one in turn to see if one of them was causing the issue) but the errors continued to appear.</p>
  
  <p>Next, instead of treating the symptom, I went to see if I could fix the cause of the issue.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9141635/getting-deprecated-error-with-simplepie">Getting deprecated error with Simplepie</a></p>
  
  <p>and</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1086539/assigning-the-return-value-of-new-by-reference-is-deprecated">Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated</a></p>
  
  <p>pointed to class-simplepie.php having some out of date syntax inside.</p>
  
  <p>Using find/replace in my text editor I swapped all 166 instances of </p>
  
  <pre><code>=&amp; new
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>for </p>
  
  <pre><code>= new
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And I am still seeing errors on my dashboard.</p>
  
  <p>So, as far as I can see, there should be no errors to report, and if there were, they shouldn't be showing up anyway.</p>
  
  <p>Wordpress is not running in debug mode.</p>
  
  <p>A paste of my phpinfo can be found here: <a href="http://pastebin.com/Pk68sDL1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://pastebin.com/Pk68sDL1</a> if it is of any use to anyone.</p>
  
  <p>Not sure what to try next. Any tips much appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>D</p>