Steven ZahmAll in this thread, my sincerest apologies!!!
I never saw this thread until today when another user opened a new ticket to make me aware of this ticket.
The cause of this error was a single line of which affected users where the web host is running an older version of PHP on their account.
The tests put in place to intended catch these did not flag this line as incompatible with older versions of PHP.
When this error was originally reported, it was corrected the same day. All versions of Connections 8.16 and newer has had this corrected so it is compatible with the older versions of PHP.
If you are still this error on your site:
Log into your site via FTP or your web hosts file manager and delete the plugin’s folder:
../wp-content/plugins/connections/
Your data is safe when deleting the Connections plugin folder. This is essentially how WordPress itself updates plugins. It deletes the old version files and copies the files for the new version in the plugin’s folder.
Now, install Connections as you normally would. The current version of Connections at the time of this post is 8.18.
Again, apologies for the trouble this has caused you!!!
I’m marking this thread as resolved. If you are still experiencing this issue, please let me know by opening a new ticket. I’ll reply back ASAP. If you do not hear from me within 24hrs (my average response time is far less), please contact me using the Contact link at the very bottom of this page.