Cannot unset string offsets

[futuramachina]

I've got the error below upon a fresh install of WP 2.7:

Fatal error: Cannot unset string offsets in /home/thekage/public_html/wp-includes/widgets.php on line 621

The blog actually worked before I logged into the admin area, so now neither the blog nor the admin area works.

(In [10314]) Default to empty array if sidebars_widgets is not set. Don't unset array_version if not set. fixes #8804 for trunk

(In [10315]) Default to empty array if sidebars_widgets is not set. Don't unset array_version if not set. fixes #8804 for 2.7

I now get this:

Fatal error: Cannot unset string offsets in /home/thekage/public_html/wp-includes/widgets.php on line 622

Also, before the error above, I've also noticed this error appear after I tried reinstalling:

Fatal error: Cannot use string offset as an array in /home/thekage/public_html/wp-includes/capabilities.php on line 116

Turned out to be a problem with server-side Magic Quotes.

Did you fix the issue or turn of magic quotes?
The reality is that al lot of cheap hosts have magic quotes turned on, so i think this should be fixed anyway.
​http://www.php.net/stripslashes anyone?

I think the problem is installation related, the installer behaved strangely, but finished after making a config file myself.
After installing the above error occurred.
Why i think it is the installer? because it worked for me after I copied the database from a working WP install.

So a possible workaround is to install on a local server and copy the database over to the server.
Windows: ​http://www.wampserver.com/en/
Mac: ​http://www.mamp.info/en/index.php
Linux: ​http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html

Please see #6532. In particular:

​http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6532#comment:11

(in case it might be the issue)

specifically, is there any odds that your db option contains utf-8 strings or something along those lines that might corrupt it, by having erroneous string lengths all over the place.

D.

I've used a .htaccess workaround to fix the magic quotes issue.

closing: see #9549