Fatal error and white screen of death. Location will not accept entry of location data

Hi,

Just upgraded to location 5.x-3.0

No errors or warnings on update.php after install
activated user location module.
all appropriate permissions are still active from previous version

Tried to add new users
Tried to edit the location information in my user account
No luck. In both cases get

Fatal error: Cannot use string offset as an array in /home/groupsal/public_html/sites/all/modules/location/location.module on line 527

also, whenever I visit an administrative page (ex modules, status, etc) I get a pink warning box that says...

warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in /home/groupsal/public_html/sites/all/modules/location/location.module on line 1385.

I am using these additional contrib modules.
usernode
nodeprofile (and related required supporting modules)
advanced profile

I have location collection active on two content types
user profile.
usernode.

I can successfully edit the location fields associated with the user profile, but not those associated with the user account (and the usernode that mirrors it)

any ideas, patches, workarounds? It's a show stopper, but I haven't seen anyone else talking about this one. So I'm guessing it must be operator error... Anyone else experience anything like this?

Thanks

FWIW,

Drupal 5.12
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MySQL database 5.0.67
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PHP 5.2.8
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