[attroll]

Answer to question #1
For security reasons I will use the name "blaze" instead of the username/accountname that I actually use. Here is the permissions.

Answer to question #2
root@at [/home/blaze/public_html/forum]# ll -d ./includes
drwxr-xr-x 9 blaze blaze 12288 Jan 5 12:42 ./includes/

root@at [/home/blaze/public_html/forum]# ll -d ./includes/datastore
drwxr-xr-x 2 blaze blaze 4096 Jan 5 12:14 ./includes/datastore/

root@at [/home/blaze/public_html/forum]# ll ./includes/datastore/datastore_cache.php
-rwxrwxrwx 1 blaze blaze 225479 Jan 5 15:14 ./includes/datastore/datastore_cache.php*

Answer to question #3
Yes I can view the datastore_cache.php and verify that none of the changes such as adding a forum is getting written to the file.

Answer to question #4
I am unsure of what you mean by this question. I am using the datastore_cache.php file that came with VB 3.6.8 and that is the verision I am upgraded to. Should I try and older file? I looked at all the 3.0 and up versions and they all look the same.