filemtime "warning stat failed for"

For me the filename involved was appended with a querystring, which this function didn't like.

$path = 'path/to/my/file.js?v=2'

Solution was to chop that off first:

$path = preg_replace('/\?v=[\d]+$/', '', $path);
$fileTime = filemtime($path);

I think the problem is the realpath of the file. For example your script is working on './', your file is inside the directory './xml'. So better check if the file exists or not, before you get filemtime or unlink it:

  function deleteOldFiles(){
    if ($handle = opendir('./xml')) {
        while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) { 

            if(preg_match("/^.*\.(xml|xsl)$/i", $file)){
              $fpath = 'xml/'.$file;
              if (file_exists($fpath)) {
                $filelastmodified = filemtime($fpath);

                if ( (time() - $filelastmodified ) > 24*3600){
                    unlink($fpath);
                }
              }
            }
        }
        closedir($handle); 
    }
  }

in my case it was not related to the path or filename. If filemtime(), fileatime() or filectime() don't work, try stat().

$filedate = date_create(date("Y-m-d", filectime($file)));

becomes

$stat = stat($directory.$file);
$filedate = date_create(date("Y-m-d", $stat['ctime']));

that worked for me.

Complete snippet for deleting files by number of days:

$directory = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/directory/';
$files = array_slice(scandir($directory), 2);
foreach($files as $file)
{
    $extension      = substr($file, -3, 3); 
    if ($extension == 'jpg') // in case you only want specific files deleted
    {
        $stat = stat($directory.$file);
        $filedate = date_create(date("Y-m-d", $stat['ctime']));
        $today = date_create(date("Y-m-d"));
        $days = date_diff($filedate, $today, true);
        if ($days->days > 1) 
        { 
            unlink($directory.$file);
        }
    } 
}