Greetings,
Anyway, I'm about to start a complete new install (o/s + 3.8.4) on the sandbox to test how I can "fix" the production server
This would be a great opportunity to do a packages or git installation. You only have to get the data from the live machine: $ mysqldump -u {the user name} -p {the koha database name} > PleaseTryIt.sql And transfer the data into the instance database, or git database before doing the web install. A git install is similar to a tarball install (you still get to name your database whatever you'd like, and still have those nasty long building sequences), and if you search bugzilla for patches, you can see if your problem has already been fixed with a patch that someone else provided. If it is, then you can apply the patch on the live system (after testing on your sandbox) -- without you having to figure out how to do it yourself. BTW, more problems were fixed in 3.8.5, and a packages installation on your sandbox would be good practice for doing an upgrade from tarball to packages in live. Upgrades become so much easier, and the down time is mostly reindexing. Just trying to suggest something to save you headaches in the future, like the one you are having now because you said you wanted the headaches and didn't want to try the suggestion before. GPML, Mark Tompsett