"somethign with PHP or the database"--basic troubleshooting steps?

[eluser]Dr. Seuss[/eluser]
Okay, I'm feeling like a noob again: I am getting:

The site is working... must be somethign with PHP or the database.

...and I can't quite figure out where the problem is.

I have tried inserting the lines:

echo "index";
exit;

...and...

echo "db";
exit;

at the top of both the root "index.php and "config/database.php", respectively, but I continue to get the same message:

The site is working... must be somethign with PHP or the database.

I have checked my database connection strings and they appear to be working (they work to connect to PHPMyAdmin) and I quite frankly at a loss since those echo statements alluded to above are not displaying.

The site is a pure migration of a site--which was working--that was working to another, different hosting company.

What are the usual steps to troubleshoot this most basic problem?

[eluser]hugle[/eluser]
It would be better to see the whole code
I often use print_r($value)
to see what variables are being passed and so on...

[eluser]Dr. Seuss[/eluser]
Sure, here is the "index.php" file:

Code:

<?php
/*
|---------------------------------------------------------------
| PHP ERROR REPORTING LEVEL
|---------------------------------------------------------------
|
| By default CI runs with error reporting set to ALL.  For security
| reasons you are encouraged to change this when your site goes live.
| For more info visit:  http://www.php.net/error_reporting
|
*/

    error_reporting(E_ALL);

/*
|---------------------------------------------------------------
| SYSTEM FOLDER NAME
|---------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This variable must contain the name of your "system" folder.
| Include the path if the folder is not in the same  directory
| as this file.
|
| NO TRAILING SLASH!
|
*/
    $system_folder = "system";

/*
|---------------------------------------------------------------
| APPLICATION FOLDER NAME
|---------------------------------------------------------------
|
| If you want this front controller to use a different "application"
| folder then the default one you can set its name here. The folder
| can also be renamed or relocated anywhere on your server.
| For more info please see the user guide:
| http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/general/managing_apps.html
|
|
| NO TRAILING SLASH!
|
*/
    $application_folder = "application";

/*
|===============================================================
| END OF USER CONFIGURABLE SETTINGS
|===============================================================
*/


/*
|---------------------------------------------------------------
| SET THE SERVER PATH
|---------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Let's attempt to determine the full-server path to the "system"
| folder in order to reduce the possibility of path problems.
| Note: We only attempt this if the user hasn't specified a
| full server path.
|
*/
if (strpos($system_folder, '/') === FALSE)
{
    if (function_exists('realpath') AND @realpath(dirname(__FILE__)) !== FALSE)
    {
        $system_folder = realpath(dirname(__FILE__)).'/'.$system_folder;
    }
}
else
{
    // Swap directory separators to Unix style for consistency
    $system_folder = str_replace("\\", "/", $system_folder);
}

/*
|---------------------------------------------------------------
| DEFINE APPLICATION CONSTANTS
|---------------------------------------------------------------
|
| EXT        - The file extension.  Typically ".php"
| FCPATH    - The full server path to THIS file
| SELF        - The name of THIS file (typically "index.php")
| BASEPATH    - The full server path to the "system" folder
| APPPATH    - The full server path to the "application" folder
|
*/
define('EXT', '.'.pathinfo(__FILE__, PATHINFO_EXTENSION));
define('FCPATH', __FILE__);
define('SELF', pathinfo(__FILE__, PATHINFO_BASENAME));
define('BASEPATH', $system_folder.'/');

if (is_dir($application_folder))
{
    define('APPPATH', $application_folder.'/');
}
else
{
    if ($application_folder == '')
    {
        $application_folder = 'application';
    }

    define('APPPATH', BASEPATH.$application_folder.'/');
}

/*
|---------------------------------------------------------------
| LOAD THE FRONT CONTROLLER
|---------------------------------------------------------------
|
| And away we go...
|
*/
require_once BASEPATH.'codeigniter/CodeIgniter'.EXT;


/* End of file index.php */
/* Location: ./index.php */

I have removed changed the config/autoload.php to not load 'database' so that should remove the possibility of the database connection causing the error.

Lastly, the .htaccess file is:

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

## MIME TYPES ###
AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf

#Removes access to the system folder by users.
#Additionally this will allow you to create a System.php controller,
#previously this would not have been possible.
#'system' can be replaced if you have renamed your system folder.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^system.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]

#Checks to see if the user is attempting to access a valid file,
#such as an image or css document, if this isn't true it sends the
#request to index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#This last condition enables access to the images and css folders, and the robots.txt file
#Submitted by Michael Radlmaier (mradlmaier)
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|_images|robots\.txt|_css|flash)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]