I have upgraded to 2.4.7 again it worked fine. I tried 3.3.0-rc1 and get the same error as in the previous post so it seems that something changed in 3 that my setup does not like.

I dont know if the following will help:

Loading: _core/model/__core.install.php
Loading: sessions/model/_sessions.install.php

Checking DB schema version... 9700 : OK.
Upgrading blogs table... OK.
Upgrading items table... OK.
Creating keyphrase table... OK.
Upgrading hitlog table... OK.
Upgrading sessions table... OK.
Creating goal tracking table... OK.
Creating DB schema version checkpoint at 9800... OK. (Elapsed upgrade time: 0 seconds)
Updating keyphrases in hitlog table... . . . . . . OK.
Upgrading widgets table... OK.
Upgrading Files table... OK.
Creating DB schema version checkpoint at 9900... OK. (Elapsed upgrade time: 0 seconds)
Upgrading Blogs table... OK.
Adding new Post Types...OK.
Updating User tableOK.
Creating table for User field definitionsOK.
Creating default field definitions...OK.
Creating table for User fields...OK.
Creating DB schema version checkpoint at 9910... OK. (Elapsed upgrade time: 1 seconds)
Upgrading Posts table... OK.
Upgrading Categories table... OK.
Upgrading widgets table... OK.
Updating item types...OK.
OK.
Updating items table...

What is your database setup and does it support innodb?

It seems to hang here: /install/_functions_evoupgrade.php:2353:

	if( $old_db_version < 9930 )
	{	// 3.1 continued
		task_begin( 'Updating item types...' );
		$DB->query( "
			REPLACE INTO T_items__type ( ptyp_ID, ptyp_name )
			VALUES ( 3000, 'Sidebar link' )" );
		echo "OK.<br />\n";
		task_end();

		task_begin( 'Updating items table...' );
		$DB->query( "ALTER TABLE T_items__item ENGINE=innodb" );	// fp> hum... this originally was a test :)
		task_end();

You may need to remove every occurance of 'ENGINE=innodb' so it will use default engine (MyISAM)

Also I found this comment from Francois:

	// fp> I don't understand why we need to carry this out "again" but I observed the installer barking on
		// this setting missing when upgrading from older 2.x versions. I figured it would be no big deal to do it twice...
		task_begin( 'Makin sure usersettings table is InnoDB...' );
		$DB->query( 'ALTER TABLE T_users__usersettings ENGINE=innodb' );

But I'm unsure what he meant by that.