diff --git a/api/ticket_dependencies.php b/api/ticket_dependencies.php
index 3c58e87..f75b3d5 100644
--- a/api/ticket_dependencies.php
+++ b/api/ticket_dependencies.php
@@ -27,10 +27,19 @@ register_shutdown_function(function () {
 ini_set('display_errors', 0);
 error_reporting(E_ALL);
 
-// Custom error handler
+// Custom error handler. Only genuine errors abort the request; notices,
+// warnings and deprecations (e.g. new deprecations on a PHP upgrade) are
+// logged but must not take the endpoint down with a 500.
 set_error_handler(function ($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) {
-    // Log detailed error server-side
+    // Respect the @-operator / error_reporting.
+    if (!(error_reporting() & $errno)) {
+        return false;
+    }
     error_log("PHP Error in ticket_dependencies.php: $errstr in $errfile:$errline");
+    if (!in_array($errno, [E_ERROR, E_USER_ERROR, E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR, E_PARSE], true)) {
+        // Non-fatal: log and continue.
+        return true;
+    }
     ob_end_clean();
     http_response_code(500);
     header('Content-Type: application/json');
diff --git a/helpers/Database.php b/helpers/Database.php
index b6d2f7a..1f8c5d9 100644
--- a/helpers/Database.php
+++ b/helpers/Database.php
@@ -22,11 +22,9 @@ class Database
             self::$connection = self::createConnection();
         }
 
-        // Check if connection is still alive
-        if (!self::$connection->ping()) {
-            self::$connection = self::createConnection();
-        }
-
+        // Note: no ping()/reconnect check — mysqli auto-reconnect was removed in
+        // PHP 8.2 and mysqli::ping() is deprecated in 8.4. The connection is
+        // request-scoped and short-lived, so a liveness check is unnecessary.
         return self::$connection;
     }