PhpMyAdmin some advanced features have disappeared

Question

I recently upgraded PhpMyAdmin (PMA) using apt. In PMA, there's now no console, and when I'm typing SQL queries I don't get auto complete suggestions for column names. I'm not getting any warnings at all from PMA, and the PMA database seems to be functioning properly. The "Recent" drop down is working fine. I can open the query window and view query history just fine.

My understanding of PMA administration is limited - It's a debian server, and there are PMA directories in /usr/share, /etc, /var/lib. It's not clear to me if upgrading with apt is appropriate, which directories this affects, what config files I need to manually change each time, which files I need to know will be overwritten, etc.

Here's my config.inc.php:

<?php
/**
 * Debian local configuration file
 *
 * This file overrides the settings made by phpMyAdmin interactive setup
 * utility.
 *
 * For example configuration see
 *   /usr/share/doc/phpmyadmin/examples/config.sample.inc.php
 * or
 *   /usr/share/doc/phpmyadmin/examples/config.manyhosts.inc.php
 *
 * NOTE: do not add security sensitive data to this file (like passwords)
 * unless you really know what you're doing. If you do, any user that can
 * run PHP or CGI on your webserver will be able to read them. If you still
 * want to do this, make sure to properly secure the access to this file
 * (also on the filesystem level).
 */

if (!function_exists('check_file_access')) {
    function check_file_access($path)
    {
        if (is_readable($path)) {
            return true;
        } else {
            error_log(
                'phpmyadmin: Failed to load ' . $path
                . ' Check group www-data has read access and open_basedir restrictions.'
            );
            return false;
        }
    }
}

// Load secret generated on postinst
if (check_file_access('/var/lib/phpmyadmin/blowfish_secret.inc.php')) {
    require('/var/lib/phpmyadmin/blowfish_secret.inc.php');
}

// Load autoconf local config
if (check_file_access('/var/lib/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php')) {
    require('/var/lib/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php');
}

/**
 * Server(s) configuration
 */
$i = 0;
// The $cfg['Servers'] array starts with $cfg['Servers'][1].  Do not use $cfg['Servers'][0].
// You can disable a server config entry by setting host to ''.
$i++;

/**
 * Read configuration from dbconfig-common
 * You can regenerate it using: dpkg-reconfigure -plow phpmyadmin
 */
if (check_file_access('/etc/phpmyadmin/config-db.php')) {
    require('/etc/phpmyadmin/config-db.php');
}

/* Configure according to dbconfig-common if enabled */
if (!empty($dbname)) {
    /* Authentication type */
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
    /* Server parameters */
    if (empty($dbserver)) $dbserver = 'localhost';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = $dbserver;

    if (!empty($dbport) || $dbserver != 'localhost') {
        $cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp';
        $cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = $dbport;
    }
    //$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] = false;
    /* Select mysqli if your server has it */
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysqli';
    /* Optional: User for advanced features */
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] = $dbuser;
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] = $dbpass;
    /* Optional: Advanced phpMyAdmin features */
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] = $dbname;
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable'] = 'pma__bookmark';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation'] = 'pma__relation';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info'] = 'pma__table_info';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords'] = 'pma__table_coords';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages'] = 'pma__pdf_pages';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info'] = 'pma__column_info';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['history'] = 'pma__history';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_uiprefs'] = 'pma__table_uiprefs';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking'] = 'pma__tracking';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords'] = 'pma__designer_coords';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['userconfig'] = 'pma__userconfig';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['recent'] = 'pma__recent';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['favorite'] = 'pma__favorite';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['users'] = 'pma__users';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['usergroups'] = 'pma__usergroups';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['navigationhiding'] = 'pma__navigationhiding';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['savedsearches'] = 'pma__savedsearches';

    /* Uncomment the following to enable logging in to passwordless accounts,
     * after taking note of the associated security risks. */
    // $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowNoPassword'] = TRUE;

    /* Advance to next server for rest of config */
    $i++;
}

/* Authentication type */
//$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
/* Server parameters */
//$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';
//$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp';
//$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] = false;
/* Select mysqli if your server has it */
//$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysql';
/* Optional: User for advanced features */
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] = 'pma';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] = 'pmapass';

/* Storage database and tables */
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] = 'phpmyadmin';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable'] = 'pma__bookmark';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation'] = 'pma__relation';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info'] = 'pma__table_info';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords'] = 'pma__table_coords';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages'] = 'pma__pdf_pages';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info'] = 'pma__column_info';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['history'] = 'pma__history';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_uiprefs'] = 'pma__table_uiprefs';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking'] = 'pma__tracking';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords'] = 'pma__designer_coords';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['userconfig'] = 'pma__userconfig';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['recent'] = 'pma__recent';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['favorite'] = 'pma__favorite';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['users'] = 'pma__users';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['usergroups'] = 'pma__usergroups';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['navigationhiding'] = 'pma__navigationhiding';
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['savedsearches'] = 'pma__savedsearches';
/* Uncomment the following to enable logging in to passwordless accounts,
 * after taking note of the associated security risks. */
// $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowNoPassword'] = TRUE;

/*
 * End of servers configuration
 */

/*
 * Directories for saving/loading files from server
 */
$cfg['UploadDir'] = '';
$cfg['SaveDir'] = '';

/* Support additional configurations */
foreach (glob('/etc/phpmyadmin/conf.d/*.php') as $filename)
{
    include($filename);
}


// tmp dir for speeding up - JS
$cfg['TempDir'] = '/tmp';

Any advice?

Answer 1

That's right, 4.2 is packaged with Jessie ("oldoldstable") Debian and as you've seen, it is really very old. I would suggest installing a newer version manually (we have directions at https://docs.phpmyadmin.net/en/latest/setup.html). I believe Jessie comes with PHP 5.6, which means phpMyAdmin 4.9.5 would work.

I'm pretty sure the Console feature was added with version 4.3, so it makes sense that it isn't in Jessie's version. I'm not as confident about when autocomplete was added, but it wouldn't surprise me if that came after that version as well.