The likely fatal occurred when a Phase 15 database table was missing or its migration had not completed. WordPress then returned null for a guild query, and PHP 8 threw a TypeError when that value was passed to array_map().

The hotfix adds:

  • Verification of all Phase 15 guild tables.
  • Automatic one-time schema repair.
  • Null-safe database query results.
  • Graceful fallback when guild expansion data is unavailable.
  • Debug logging when WP_DEBUG is enabled.
  • Frontend migration-error messaging instead of a site-wide fatal error.
  • Database version update to 0.20.1.