I'm moving my store to a new hosting company, Arvixe. I initially tried to cowboy this change by copying all files and editing the configure files as needed. I was able to get the admin pages working without much trouble and was reading and writing to the new database. My main store however was nothing but the dreaded blank page. After hours of reviewing zen-cart forum posts, I bit the bullet and downloaded a fresh install (using FileZilla as recommended). I wiped the host site and database and did a fresh install. During the install the first check revealed that SSL was not setup and I don't use SSL. A recheck cleared that red error and left only a SQL warning regarding the //cache. I completed the install following all steps, renamed the admin folder, edited that new name in the admin configure file, reset file permissions, and deleted the zc_install folder. In the end I was left with the same result as my first attempt. Admin pages work fine, main store is a blank page. I then erased all data and did another fresh install including downloading a new installation file set, same result.

Next I started to dig into what was happening with crude echo statements to find where the first error was first occurring. What I found was in the file includes/application_top.php starting on line 99. A file_exists check is done on 'includes/configure.php'. This appears to be where the configure.php file is first loaded. While I'm no expert in php, I though it strange that this hard-coded path prefixed the file name with the 'includes' directory. I was not sure what directory the code was actually executing in with the application_top.php residing in 'includes' but the base file that loaded it (index.php) residing in the root directory. I've rechecked the permissions on the configure files and added a few more echo statements prior to the code crashing to reveal this:

dirname(__FILE__) = E:\HostingSpaces\username\mysite.com\wwwroot\includes

getcwd() = C:\PHP5

fileperms = 0444

file_exists('/HostingSpaces/username/mysite.com/wwwroot/includes/configure.php') = true

file_exists('includes/configure.php') = false

file_exists('configure.php') = false

Warning: require(includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_zc_install_suggested_default.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in E:\HostingSpaces\username\mysite.com\wwwroot\includes\application_top.php on line 150

Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_zc_install_suggested_default.php' (include_path='.;C:\PHP5\PEAR') in E:\HostingSpaces\username\mysite.com\wwwroot\includes\application_top.php on line 150

I'm not sure what is going on. Maybe the windows servers execute php differently? I didn't seem to find anything regarding this issue in the forum. Arvixe has Microsoft servers and they also claim they have customers using zen-cart successfully. I'm unsure what version of zen-cart these others are using. I'm am at version 1.3.9.h. I would rather not upgrade on my existing server and saw in posts that it is not recommended to move and upgrade in the same step.

I'm not finding anything in the forum that helps, thanks