I received a message from vserver support saying that they can not upgrade their PHP version (exact reason seems far too technological for me to understand but it has to do with the way their servers are set up). I wouldn't mind having old software, I dont even run always the latest software versions on my desktop unless I consider they make a real difference, but I would never settle for a beta (when there is another release...).

I don't know if that's the problem (or some other misconfiguration on my side) but if it is I'll have to change hosts again...something that I hate.