[Amiga Harrison]

Yep. I realised that straight after posting and used tools.php to reset the cookie path/domains. All is now working correctly.

Thanks everyone for trying to help.

--------------- Added [DATE]1235738920[/DATE] at [TIME]1235738920[/TIME] ---------------

Originally Posted by BSMedia

A malformed .htaccess most likely. Do you have a fill called error_logs on the server that could probably pinpoint the cause.

No. 1&1 have their servers configured in a unique way. To access mysql 4 databases you just use the normal localhost and it connects with the standard "/tmp/mysql.sock" socket. However to access mysql 5 databases you have to connect using a second "/tmp/mysql5.sock" socket.

1&1 only upgraded their managed servers to support mysql 5 databases a couple of weeks ago, so this is kind of a bolted on addition. They are still supporting existing created mysql 4 databases on the servers, but only allowing mysql 5 for any new databases created. So I think they are slowly trying to phase out version 4, while still maintaining support for both using different sockets.

And as this is so new on their managed servers I expect most vB users haven't encountered this issue yet as they will still be using mysql 4 databases with their forums. However as new installations are setup on 1&1 servers I'm sure more people will encounter this problem, and I hope the solution I found will be useful for others using 1&1.

I do however wish 1&1 had notified it's customers directly about this update and given some details about how it worked. Instead they just rolled out the mysql 5 support quietly, and the first I knew about it was when I logged into the 1&1 control panel for my server and there was a notice on the database admin page. But even that didn't mention the socket use. I had to dig through the 1&1 FAQs to find that info. Although I have to say, they had updated their FAQs quickly to support the changes (although obviously not mentioning the .htaccess solution I've used).