Errors with CMS

[tpearl5]

I'm stumped with this one and it's driving me nuts...

I had been noticing some weird behavior in my CMS lately, so I ran 'Verify and Repair Node Table'. It said something was fixed then that the node table was repaired. Originally when clicking on Content, Section, and Category manager nothing was shown. There was an option for "Lost and Found', but nothing was in it. When clicking on permissions I get this error:

Cannot proceed as no CMS root node could be found.

This is a fatal error that should never occur unless your node table is broken or corrupted. You may need to reinstall the CMS.

So I did the following in this order...

1. Reinstalled the CMS - didn't work, same errors
2. clicked Verify and Repair Node Table again - it completed by had no effect
3. Disabled hooks, and ran repair again - didn't make a difference
4. Reuploaded all files and ran the update for 4.2.2 pl1 - didn't make a difference, however now I'm able to see options when clicking on 'Change Section' in Content and Section managers, otherwise nothing is displayed.
5. Now this error appears when clicking Verify and Repair Node Table:
   

   No required itemid specified when instantiating Model object 'vBCms_Item_Content' on line 207 in /home/site/public_html/vb/model.php
   #0 /home/site/public_html/vb/item/content.php(108): vB_Model->__construct(0, false)
   #1 /home/site/public_html/packages/vbcms/item/content.php(576): vB_Item_Content->__construct(0, false)
   #2 /home/site/public_html/packages/vbcms/dm/node.php(614): vBCms_Item_Content->__construct(0)
   #3 [internal function]: vBCms_DM_Node->validateParent(0, false)
   #4 /home/site/public_html/vb/dm.php(621): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
   #5 /home/site/public_html/vb/dm.php(488): vB_DM->validate('parentnode', NULL, false)
   #6 /home/site/public_html/packages/vbcms/dm/node.php(763): vB_DM->set('parentnode', NULL)
   #7 /home/site/public_html/packages/vbcms/contentmanager.php(3681): vBCms_DM_Node->set('parentnode', NULL)
   #8 /home/site/public_html/admincp/cms_content_admin.php(450): vBCms_ContentManager::fixNodeLR()
   #9 {main}
   
   
   Fatal error: No required itemid specified when instantiating Model object 'vBCms_Item_Content' on line 207 in /home/site/public_html/vb/model.php in /home/site/public_html/vb/vb.php on line 286

6. Removed any erroneous files from past installs, verifying all files again - didn't make a difference
7. Checked database and ran repairs on cms tables - didn't make a difference

I'm also now getting this database error consistently:

valid SQL:
SELECT parent.nodeid, parent.styleid, parent.layoutid from n_cms_node AS node INNER JOIN n_cms_node AS parent ON (node.nodeleft >= parent.nodeleft AND node.nodeleft <= parent.noderight)
WHERE node.nodeid =
ORDER BY parent.nodeleft DESC ;;

MySQL Error : You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'ORDER BY parent.nodeleft DESC' at line 3

It looks like it's triggering when a user's article post page is accessed. (even though none of the users have any articles, which is silly that the page even exists at all..)

What am I missing here? What is needed in the database that is not there?