Issue with MediaWiki\Skin\Skin::appendSpecialPagesLinkIfAbsent #468
Description
I'm not totally sure if this is an actual issue on Chameleon, for us it didn't happen with default skin.
In MediaWiki 1.44 the above function causes massive log spam, like such:
[Wed Jul 09 14:18:46.895925 2025] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 1961809] [client 162.158.170.15:0] AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Deprecated: Use of MediaWiki\\Skin\\Skin::appendSpecialPagesLinkIfAbsent was deprecated in MediaWiki 1.44. [Called from MediaWiki\\Skin\\Skin::buildSidebar in /httpdocs/includes/skins/Skin.php at line 1639] in /httpdocs/includes/debug/MWDebug.php on line 386'
There is a fix for it in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T393507, which simply removes the function.
That however doesn't work when Chameleon is installed and leads to a blank page, due to this error appearing:
[Wed Jul 09 14:19:20.539345 2025] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 1947706] [client 162.158.163.161:0] AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Warning: foreach() argument must be of type array|object, null given in /httpdocs/includes/skins/BaseTemplate.php on line 215; PHP message: PHP Warning: foreach() argument must be of type array|object, null given in /httpdocs/includes/skins/BaseTemplate.php on line 215; PHP message: PHP Warning: foreach() argument must be of type array|object, null given in httpdocs/skins/chameleon/src/ChameleonTemplate.php on line 147'
Commenting the content of the function out instead of removing it completely resolved it, no added undesired Special Pages link, no spam and no error.
Given this is still in the released 1.44 probably nothing that needs acting on, but I guess many users will try to cherrypick that fix due to the massive log spam and then run into the other issue.