Have you checked if the JSON file still exists in the location you are trying to pull it from? Have you checked what value the file_get_contents returned? Do you have error reporting on?
Wild guess is that the file doesn’t exists anymore and file_get_contents returns then false. And when you run false through json_decode it returns null. This should give you a warning tho.
…
Do you have error reporting on?
YES
using the follow function
function json_validate($string)
{
// decode the JSON data
$result = json_decode($string);
// switch and check possible JSON errors
switch (json_last_error()) {
case JSON_ERROR_NONE:
$error = ''; // JSON is valid // No error has occurred
break;
case JSON_ERROR_DEPTH:
$error = 'The maximum stack depth has been exceeded.';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_STATE_MISMATCH:
$error = 'Invalid or malformed JSON.';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR:
$error = 'Control character error, possibly incorrectly encoded.';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX:
$error = 'Syntax error, malformed JSON.';
break;
// PHP >= 5.3.3
case JSON_ERROR_UTF8:
$error = 'Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encoded.';
break;
// PHP >= 5.5.0
case JSON_ERROR_RECURSION:
$error = 'One or more recursive references in the value to be encoded.';
break;
// PHP >= 5.5.0
case JSON_ERROR_INF_OR_NAN:
$error = 'One or more NAN or INF values in the value to be encoded.';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_TYPE:
$error = 'A value of a type that cannot be encoded was given.';
break;
default:
$error = 'Unknown JSON error occured.';
break;
}
if ($error !== '') {
// throw the Exception or exit // or whatever :)
exit($error);
}
// everything is OK
return $result;
}
//
<off-topic> @stefano13 when you post code in the forum, you need to format it. To do so you can either select all the code and click the </> button, or type 3 backticks ``` on a separate line both before and after the code block. </off-topic>
Have you checked what value the file_get_contents returned? ← and this? The function returns false on failure. So if that return value is false the file couldn’t be read for some reason. Maybe file permissions have changed?