Call to undefined function Symfony\Component\Console\Input\escapeshellarg()

Question

When running composer install in production I get a new error message today:

$ composer install
Installing dependencies from lock file (including require-dev)
Verifying lock file contents can be installed on current platform.
Nothing to install, update or remove
Package swiftmailer/swiftmailer is abandoned, you should avoid using it. Use symfony/mailer instead.
Generating optimized autoload files
> Illuminate\Foundation\ComposerScripts::postAutoloadDump
> @php artisan package:discover --ansi

   Error

  Call to undefined function Symfony\Component\Console\Input\escapeshellarg()

  at vendor/symfony/console/Input/Input.php:195
    191▕      * @return string
    192▕      */
    193▕     public function escapeToken(string $token)
    194▕     {
  ➜ 195▕         return preg_match('{^[\w-]+$}', $token) ? $token : escapeshellarg($token);
    196▕     }
    197▕
    198▕     /**
    199▕      * {@inheritdoc}

      +1 vendor frames
  2   [internal]:0
      Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput::Symfony\Component\Console\Input\{closure}("package:discover")

      +8 vendor frames
  11  artisan:37
      Illuminate\Foundation\Console\Kernel::handle(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
Script @php artisan package:discover --ansi handling the post-autoload-dump event returned with error code 1

I can't figure out what is wrong. I'm wondering if the dependencies have got into a funny state and I need to do a fresh install of the vendor directory?

Answer 1

Turns out the function escapeshellarg() was disabled by the hosting provider. Thank you Nico for your help!