Okay, I've read all 78 pages of this thread and don't see the answer to my problem.

I've been using an old osc loaded version with easy populate for several years. Because my osc version is so outdated and has lots of "issues" with the newer php etc., I decided to start a new site and wanted to use Zen cart if I didn't have to lose too much of what I had in the old loaded version.

One thing that is important is being able to move the inventory in. I have over 3000 items and don't want to put them in one by one. I have never had a problem with EP and osc loaded. I download, edit and upload or just upload new items as I go. I've never had it time out or not upload. The full inventory file is only 757kb and it only takes 2 seconds to download from osc loaded. I have tried everything to upload it to Zen and cannot get it to work. I've done the split file, no luck still times out. I even set up individual files on my computer with only 100 lines each, the first one loaded, the second one timed out. It uploads about 1200 items.

There are some things about my inventory that may be causing problems with Zen that work fine in OSC loaded.

....I use linked products, so I have some products that are listed 2-3 times with the same model number but different categories, but some of those have uploaded fine.
....I do have some symbols in my descriptions and items like #, ' and ", but of the products that do upload, many have those symbols in them.
....I have categories and subcategories three deep, but some of the products that do uploaded are in the second level subcategories.

The only thing that looks suspect to me, maybe because I don't know what it really is, is the 'master product ID'. On the items that are linked, this shows as 'invalid master ID', and a drop down box shows both items with unique numbers. On items that are only in one category, every item shows as master product category #0.

Both Zen and osc loaded are on the same server under the same website, one under cart and one under catalog. We did that so that it would be easier to switch to the new zen if/when we could get it set up.

We have a few things set in apache because of the new php not working with my older osc loaded:
a. register globals=on
b. safe_mode = off
2. curl with ssl support
3. GD

We have apache 1.3.37 (Unix), PHP 5.2.1

Does anyone have any suggestions, or am I just out of luck if I want to change to Zen without re-inputting my inventory? Or have I totally confused everyone?