[cheesegrits]

But I don't think that would be causing the runaway problem. That would just potentially screw up the HTML of any actual output.

Mr Apples - I suggest you look at using xdebug with something like Eclipse. It'll take a while to setup, and you'll need a test server which doesn't have the Zend Encoder loaded, but it's worth it. You'll wonder how the heck you managed before. With xdebug and a decent IDE like Eclipse or Komodo, you can just step through the code in real time, set breakpoints, watch variable values, etc. It makes debugging this kind of problem literally a zillion times easier. At least. Possibly a gazillion times.

The alternative is just to start putting in var_dumps every other line in the code, so you can start to see what is going on. Which may be quicker than the initial effort of setting up xdebug ... but it's like that "teach a man to fish" proverb ... it may take longer first time, but once you can fish and/or xdebug, you are set for life!

-- hugh