Ok. I'm sorta back up and it was a pain in the neck too. Here are all the steps I took. Not sure what step, or steps, resolved the problem ... maybe a combination of all of them.

I was able to get a backup of the MySQL database, which saved my butt in the end.

I moved to another server totally. I don't "think" the old server was the problem, but I figured better to just make the change than waste a lot of time fighting the old server.

I installed XOOPS 2.0.10 from scratch. I did notice during my uploading via FTP (I use CuteFTP) that some of the file sizes would vary. I could not get all the way through the install, let alone get to the admin page.

I read somewhere here on the forums to transfer in binary instead of ascii. I re-uploaded all the files using binary and "most" of them maintained the same filesize. The install worked perfectly this time and I was able to get in.

I re-uploaded all the modules that were installed on the old server. I didn't bother to set any preferences at this point.

Once all the modules were installed I ran MySQLAdmin, dropped all the tables, and imported the backup I made from the old server. Other than a few formatting issues, the website is back up and running.

If anyone has any idea WHY this happened I would love to hear it.

Thanks for all the online (and offline) help.

JoN

see that all the time....
the file headers get malformed when they are ftp'd incorrectly...and produce wildly inconsistent results...page works once, and never works again etc.

Why? I believe that simplisticly it has to do with how the line breaks in the files are written...binary preserves them in a way that leaves them functional, ascii replaces them with 'place holders' that cause errors...

good example to see it in action...check out the backpack module. Does a great job saving and importing your MySQL data from xoops...BUT save the data with back pack and try re-inserting it with phpMyAdmin, and it throws errors all day long.

Another easy way to graphically see what I am referring to is to open a php file with notepad, and open an exact duplicate of the file in wordpad...the difference you see there, means a lot to the server.

Ipswitch WS-FTPPro is a good alternative to CuteFTP, which didn't work for me very well or consistently either

Yea, I think I will try another FTP package. Things didn't upload as well as I first thought and I had to go back and check every single file uploaded to make sure the filesize was the same. I had bugs around every corner. Took me quite a few hours finding all the bad uploads and reuploading them in binary. In fact, I still have a few modules not working that I need to check.

If anyone is using CuteFTP and they start uploading in binary, keep an eye on your upload method. CuteFTP will switch back to "Automatic" for some reason.

Sleep ... it's overrated.