MyBB : How to fix the error “There was a problem communicating with the version server. Please try again in a few minutes” ?

When I am dealing with MyBB websites, I found the below error and after modifying some settings, was able to fix the error. And the error was not shown. Would like to share how I fixed this issue for the MyBB website(s).

• This article applies to MyBB version 1.6.x.

Usually below error you see, if there is an issue:

The following errors were encountered:
There was a problem communicating with the version server. Please try again in a few minutes.

You are seeing this error for your MyBB website, which means; something is not working properly. We will see, how to fix this issue.

1. Usually, this error will be shown when MyBB attempts to call the functions in the version_check.php file.
2. You can find verison_check.php file under /admin/modules/home/ folder location.
3. Open the file version_check.php, and look for the below code:
   

   $contents = fetch_remote_file("http://mybb.com/version_check.php");

4. It seems everything is fine. But for me, it doesn’t work. I have updated http: with https:
   

   $contents = fetch_remote_file("https://mybb.com/version_check.php");

5. Save the changes once the changes are done. Now we need to verify whether this is working fine.
6. Log in as an admin to your MyBB account. Again login to Administrative Control Panel. By default, MyBB will display the Dashboard. And for me, it displays the below message:

   You are currently running MyBB 1.6.12 whilst the latest generally available release is MyBB 1.8.12 (1812).

   That shows to upgrade to the latest version of MyBB forum software. Lets’ don’t worry about this now. We need to verify whether we are getting the above error or not.

7. Click on the Version Check link, which is left side of the Home page. This will trigger to call the functions in the version_check.php file, which we just modified.
8. Observe that, we will not see the error again. For me, it shows MyBB version details. That means this is fixed and working as expected.

🙂 Sahida