I have also been having this for ages (the server is running PHP 5.2.5). I’m not on Media Temple and my hosts have told me that everyone seems to be getting the problem. I sent them this thread to see if they could fix it but still no joy: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/1848/
I think the problem is that Magento tries to use set_ini(’include_path’) to override the server’s normal include path, but sometimes it doesn’t work. My site works 70% of the time and then has ‘funny turns’!
[14 Feb 12:06pm UTC] it at inmolinkmls dot com
We have compiled the latest CVS snapshot
(http://snaps.php.net/php5.2-latest.tar.gz) on Linux kernel
2.6.9-42.plus.c4 (Centos 4) as apache2 module with no luck. We have used
just the most basic configuration (--with-apxs2=/wwwroot/bin/apxs).
We have been able to reproduce the bug with 2 virtualhost, one with
php_value and another one with php_admin_value. As soon as we load the
one with php_admin_value, the include_path of the first one starts to
randomly fail.
We have a serious problem with this bug, since we are developing an
application with Zend Framework (Did you realize how seriously this bug
affects Zend Framework MVC (Zend/Loader.php / loadFile (#125))? It just
doesn’t work at all because of the bug).
Hope to see this bug solved soon.
[21 Feb 12:56pm UTC] tallyce at gmail dot com
See also bug
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=44178
which I now see describes the same behaviour.
[26 Feb 12:22pm UTC] manuel at mausz dot at
Yes. The bug only occurs if you’re mixing php_admin_value and php_value
with the same ini-setting.
[7 Mar 8:21pm UTC] oliver dot graetz at gmx dot de
In order to avoid getting my report marked as a duplicate of this one:
I have experienced a similar problem with PHP 5.2.5. I am using
set_include_path() but the PHP ignores the call and uses the value
defined in the main php.ini file.
[13 Mar 4:01pm UTC]
This bug has been fixed in CVS.
Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.