Elementor causing website to crash

[alarch]

Elementor is causing a website I have in development to crash, resulting in recovery mode kicking in. The error is as follows:

An error of type E_COMPILE_ERROR was caused in line 2 of the file .../wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/managers/elements.php. Error message: Namespace declaration statement has to be the very first statement or after any declare call in the script

Any suggestions as to what may be causing this?

 

[alarch]

I came across a thread on Github from June of this year (not allowed to post the link) titled
"Issue with Wordpress 5.2.2 #8364"

 

[alarch]

The issue seems to have been resolved by first using the Twenty Sixteen theme, and then re-activating the original Astra theme.