My b2evolution Version: 3.x

My shared hosting service recently upgraded PHP to 5.3.8 and it broke my version of B2Evo (3.x circa 12/09; how do you find the version no.?).

Never having done an upgrade on B2Evo, I tried reading the manual (kidding, right???) and following the instructions. http://manual.b2evolution.net/Upgrade_from_an_older_version

For us wanna-be-computer-types, the instruction to "Run the installation script on your server" actually means type the path to the index.html file in the install folder into your browser and click the only clickable link.

I got past the first screen and set up the database configuration (pw, user, host, db user).

Selected Upgrade radio button, clicked GO! Then, got stuck on the second screen:

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Upgrading b2evolution...

Checking files...

Preparing to install .htaccess ... Already installed. (this msg is from a repeat attempt, the first attempt said "successfully installed")

Upgrading data in existing b2evolution database...

Loading module: _core/model/__core.install.php
Loading module: collections/model/_collections.install.php
Loading module: files/model/_files.install.php
Loading module: sessions/model/_sessions.install.php
Loading module: messaging/model/_messaging.install.php
Loading module: maintenance/model/_maintenance.install.php
Checking DB schema version...

OOPS! b2evolution doesn't seem to be installed yet.
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I tried tracing the code to see why this happened. The function get_db_version() tries to read the settings table and quits if it can't find it. I queried my db, found the settings table, saw the db_version is 9960. The "auto_prune_stats_done" set_name has a set_value of today's date, so something found this table.

I'd appreciate any help to get me past the OOPS! stage. My site is a food blog and I have all kinds of great preparations for you to enjoy as your reward!

Thanks.