Email pipe.php Error: Use of uninitialized value $phpconf_mtime in numeric lt (<) at /var/cpanel/ea4/ea_php_cli.pm

Symptoms

When utilizing email pipes the below error is received after the pipe.php script executes:

Use of uninitialized value $phpconf_mtime in numeric lt (<) at 
/var/cpanel/ea4/ea_php_cli.pm line 192.

Description 

When using the PHP wrapper "/usr/local/bin/php", this script reads EasyApache 4 related PHP configuration files to determine which PHP versions are configured. This wrapper also reads the configurations to determine which version of PHP an account is configured to use. In the event filesystem corruption exists, it will prevent related configuration files from being accessible to the user.

For example:

[cpaneluser@hostname ~]$ php -v
Use of uninitialized value $phpconf_mtime in numeric lt (<) at 
/var/cpanel/ea4/ea_php_cli.pm line 192.
PHP 7.2.34 (cli) (built: Dec 9 2020 03:04:50) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with the ionCube PHP Loader + ionCube24 v10.4.5, Copyright (c) 
2002-2020, by ionCube Ltd.
with Zend OPcache v7.2.34, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, 
by Zend Technologies

Anytime, PHP executes this error will appear. The system log file also indicates filesystem corruption occurred.

File: /var/log/messages

/var/log/messages:Dec 10 19:14:22 hostname kernel: EXT4-fs error 
(device sda1): ext4_lookup:1447: inode #1446454: comm pipe.php: 
deleted inode referenced: 1446487
/var/log/messages:Dec 10 19:29:04 hostname kernel: EXT4-fs error 
(device sda1): ext4_lookup:1447: inode #1446454: comm pipe.php: 
deleted inode referenced: 1446487

Workaround

Repairing the root filesystem will resolve this issue. Please check with the server's administrator for details concerning the best way to fix the filesystem.

On CentOS 6 servers: Create the below touch file, then reboot the server.

touch /forcefsck

On CentOS 7/8 servers: The system administrator should review Redhat's official steps to determine the best way to proceed with the repair.

CentOS 7 / CentOS 8 / Redhat Repair Filesystem

Note: This isn't a task the cPanel support team can perform for you as it concerns filesystem corruption, which needs to be reviewed and repaired by the system administrator.