Frustration Level: 🤬🤦‍♂️🤯
NOT SOLVED: ❌

I have been developing a fully integrated Google Firebase/Firestore database application that can handle, store, and send messages to iOS and Android devices. My development platform is cPanel, running AlmaLinux v9.4.0 STANDARD KVM and PHP 8.3. It's all good, so I thought.

The Google Firebase routines REQUIRE that gRPC be installed on the server. gRPC is an open-source framework for Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) that enables efficient communication between services and devices.

On this latest version of cPanel, the only way to install gRPC (as far as I have found) is to use the PECL PHP Modules installer in WHM. Great! Easy enough.

SO, I ran the PECL installer...and it kept running...and running...and running...
Hey, what's going on here?

The installation process never ended; it kept looping.
Software-controlled Gentle or Hard reboots did not work.
SSL login did not work.

The only solution was to have the night tech nerd leave his desk, walk to the server room, and physically turn it off and back on again.

AND...the problem was repeatable!
Far out!

I contacted cPanel and did a support entry on their development forum.
I got a pretty immediate response: "Hey there! I did confirm this issue on my end and created case CPANEL-45901 for our developers to investigate this."

What? They did not know about it? You mean I AM THE ONE WHO FOUND THE BUG? Lucky me! 🏆 
And now, it has to go to the cPanel development team. OMG! ⏳🐌

In the meantime, my project has been completely put on hold until this is resolved or someone figures out a way to install gRPC without killing the core.

AAAAAAArrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Direct link to the article:  
https://www.gridq.com/dev-notes/installing-grpc-in-module-installers-php-pecl-causing-infinite-hang

tags: PHP, cPanel, gPRC, PECL, Firebase/Firestore