After more investigating, I found that the problem goes away if I remove this from php.ini:
zend_extension="{$path}\php-7.1\ioncube_loader_win_7.1.dll"
In other words, ioncube "sometimes" bombs out and php process that is executed from the command line.
So again, no matter what the contents of the php file, if I have ioncube loader enabled as above, it just dies when I run command line php like so:
php somefile.php
ORIGINAL REQUEST
Randomly, out of the blue, the "shell_exec" parts of my code, stopped working. After some investigating, I noticed just running php from the command line is causing random behaviour. I added this to a text file, myfile.php:
<?php
print rand(10000,999999)."
";
print '-----------------'."
";
die();
I then went to the command line and typed:
php myfile.php
The first time I typed it, it shows me a random number. The second time, nothing. Then the third time, it shows me nothing, fourth time nothing, and then fifth and 6th time it works again. Then 7th it stops. Completely random.
What could possibly be causing this?
And to make it even weirder... this problem started at the same time for myself and another developer. WE both use AMPPS but we didn't upgrade recently.
Any ideas?