Please read through and comment if you have any ideas on this!
 
Having some issues with an existing ViArt setup. Some history is needed here, which includes the problems listed in the 'add to cart' thread I created.
 
Upgraded ViArt to 4.2 a few months ago, as well as DB move to UTF8. A few
errors spit out during the process. Specifically:
 
- SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character ( during ViArt admin DB
upgrade ... )
- Fatal error: Call to undefined function iconv() in
/home/..userpath../public_html/db_utf8.php on line 159 ( DB UTF8 switch.. )
 
I haven't been able to determine to what extent the above errors, are relevant
to the problems I'm having now though.
 
Problems I'm having now are as follows:
 
- Unable to add new products. New entry attempts return an 'INVALID SQL ERROR 1048' message. Workaround for this temporarily, was to manually add the entry into the database, at several locations to make it work. This 'functioned' however prompted this next issue (most likely...)
 
- I was changing the CMS layout on THIS manually entered product, from 3 column to 2 column, and back, and the products.php page for this entry is now blank, for this website. Per source, no layout content for this entry is being pulled, and thus not shown. Since this products wasn't properly 'created' in the normal sense, my bet is something wasn't created, that the layout change tried to alter, and thus doesn't exist.
 
In short, site worked and products functioned and you could checkout. After
changing layouts for the site, nothing for products page now shows up,
outside of a ViArt shopping message from footer.
 
At this point, in the overall scheme of this setup, I think the ViArt DB
entris for the multiple sites, and possibly some of the DB in general, are
somewhat corrupted. Not in data unrecoverable sense, but in proper CMS data in
DB for ViArt and configs for sites and products is incomplete/wrong/messed...
 
System end of apache, php, and what not, passes PCI Compliance so I think
it's just the DB info and ViArt setup at this point. That said, I need to find
the path of least resistence with these scattered issues. I know enough to sort
through some of the problems, but not the skills to knife through and fix this outright in a timely manner. Complete rework from ground up isn't feasible from a time standpoint. Though, I'd consider it as a path of last resort.
 
Any input or insight on this would be greatly appreciated! I'm trying to 'fix' this thing, but I feel it's a battle more than progress at this point.
 
As I said, insight and recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

It's a complicated case and I recommend you to contact ViArt Support for help with your admin and FTP login. Most likely upgrade went wrong and some data was not upgraded/added.