I tried to up grade to 12.3. both though the gul and cli and both have me this error.
if I have to upgrade php my question is how can I do this.
You need to delete the extra file (or back it up somewhere), then the process should continue.
Ok when you say I need to delete the extra files. This is what the error said too, But how to do you do that I can rear a error but what I dont see is how to remove the extra file what extra file, I have Nextcloud on a Ubuntu 16.04 server. I uninstall php did a purge php. reinstall php did a apt autoremove. Then reinstalled php think that this may fix the issue. Now I have a black page when I tried to bring up nextcloud.
Now I may have to start all over again, when all I wanted to do was to update the program. I was working just fine.
Depends where you installed it, e.g. in /var/www/nextcloud, then you should find a single file called php somewhere (most likely in the main folder). You could make a feature request on github to specify the error message, e.g. by showing the full path when you point the mouse on it.
I can ssh in to the server I can see edit the /var/www/nextcloud file but now I have this blank page to deal with have you ever seen or heard of this before. When I uninstalled php and reinstall it now I get a blank page. When I type http:// ip /nextcloud it look like it trying to bring it up but all I get is a blank page.
/var/www/nextcloud is very likely a folder and if you delete it, you delete your whole setup. You should not reinstall or temper in any way with your php setup. The additional file only indicates that there is a single file called php among your nextcloud files.