HELP!!! Starting upgrade killed my phpmyadmin access

OK, this is getting to the point of being somewhat irritating...

I upgraded xampp, it went just fine. Access to the CP, everything I expected.

I downloaded my existing store, got it running, and can access the store admin. I copied the database into MySQL, works great.

Installed the ZC v1.3.9h, created a store using a clone of the DB - works like a charm.

As per the instructions in "3 easy steps to upgrade zen cart", I downloaded the installer for the old v1.3.8a ZC, was ready to install it and wanted to clone the DB first so tried to access phpmyadmin...and I get the following error message:
Cannot start session without errors, please check errors given in your PHP and/or webserver log file and configure your PHP installation properly.:lamo:

As far as I can see, this seems to be linked to the zencart installs somehow...I did nothing else between the last install and downloading the earlier version of ZC...

So, any ideas? What is this "log file" it is talking about? What happened? How do I fix it?

I was really hoping to get this upgrade working! Or perhaps I should just stick with the older version?

OK, I may have found a fix - on a hunch I went to the session files in c:/xampp/temp, found the newest file and deleted it...then restarted phpmyadmin...and it worked.

I'd still like to know what caused this. In thinking back, I "may" not have exited the prior session before trying to create a new one - would that have cause this kind of problem?

So...upward and onward, v1.3.9h here I come...:shocking: