Thanks for the reply. Yes, my online system is working fine now on Debian Jessie. I a took a spare Pi2 and did a new install of Debian Stretch Lite to see if I could do the upgrade to Debian 9. I now have it working after commenting out the call to atom-top-warning.php. There is something there that php7 does not like. I am going to troubleshoot that today. My plan is to have a production system that is free of the bulk from the old wview and years of upgrades. I did not do a fresh install of Jessie when I began this project and there is still a lot of fat on the system.
Thanks
Bob