That's what they made EasyApache (Apache Update) for, Lynne. ;)

I upgraded to PHP 5.3.6 and it was a breeze.

Search function on our system (4.0.6) is a nightmare! Search from the ACP, as well as from the widgets fails to return correct post counts, etc. The best option is to go to Advanced Search, select "Search Single Content Type" for Posts and enter criteria. But the results still do not come close to the parameters.

For example, I will search for my own posts for the past two days, knowing I've posted, say 10. I might get back 3. If I add keywords, sometimes I get 0, sometimes not. Plus, the search takes forever.

We're on PHP 5.2.14, MySQL 5.0.92 community, cPanelPro 1.1 (RC1)
(We had vB do the install, and the tech assured us versions were fine.)

Our Mods go nuts trying to find results. We put newbies under moderation for a few posts to make sure they aren't spammers or trolls. Some stay longer than 2 or 3 posts, if content is questionable, so I historically use the APC to find posts. But that's been a genuine pain since we upgraded, and our Mods are really complaining about it. We get a lot of surfers who come specifically to find information, and my "contact us" feedback gets complaints that the search is worthless.

Any ideas why or what to look for?

It's really not a good idea to hijack someone else's thread.

Do you have search indexing turned on for all forums - forum manager > forum > Index New Posts in Search Engine> Yes. If that was set to no and you change it to Yes, you must then Rebuild the search indexes in maintenance > update counters > Rebuild search index.