Solved: Server Installation Trouble

[eluser]ywftdg[/eluser]
That worked fine for say app path, but for system path it makes a wonky path

$system_folder = dirname(__FILE__)."../../system";

when I echo that, it comes back '/var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/thedesigners../../system'

This all works locally (of course) but for system locally I just use "../../system". So when on server this didn't work, i started using full path, no go still.