upgraded and site hosted

Hmmmm.... this behavior is consistent with cases where a module folder gets moved to a new location for whatever reason, or deleted. Its also possible that you accidentally added another CTools directory, though i don't know for a fact it would result in this error. Though typically, you'd put all contrib modules like ctools in sites/all/modules/ctools not modules/ctools. Very puzzling.

In any case this is not a ctools issue, but an issue related to how you updated your site (believe me this would have been reported more had it been actually ctools problem).

Since you can run sql commands try this:

UPDATE system SET status = 0 WHERE name = 'page_manager';

This sql command will disable that specific module that is causing the fatal error. Let me know if running that command results in another module throwing a tantrum as that could indicate a bigger namespace conflict.

its actually more handy for managing upgrades of drupal than multisite, but no biggy.
Typically i use navicat to connect to remote database via SSH:
http://www.navicat.com

Makes it really easy to inspect lots of tables, and change values quickly (carefully of course).

Okay, lets try the big guns -- please paste the function drupal_flush_all_caches(); on line 17 of the index.php file. Your file should look like this...

// ...
require_once './includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);
drupal_flush_all_caches();
$return = menu_execute_active_handler();
// ...

*Immediately remove this line after giving it a couple tries. You don't want this function running on every page load or sitting around. *

Running this function will clear every cache table, and reload the registery of theme and module files. Its sort of like a "resest" button. if this doesn't work, we have a mysterious issue on our hands.

sorry didn't mean to change component.

Assuming that you put it on line 17 like a so ( it has to be directly under drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL)) then we have a really important clue.
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);
drupal_flush_all_caches();

If system module isn't getting loaded that probably means NO MODULES are getting loaded.That's a lead if ever saw one.

I'm moving this out of ctools support as this is no longer a likely to be a ctools issue. Lots of things can cause this problem, so lets take care of one obvious possibility: files are missing or deleted. Easiest way to fix that is to replace drupal core files with fresh ones.

If that doesn't work I'd copy a new directory in my sites folder and install a second site running off that install. If that site doesn't work, we've narrowed it down to either something fubar in the database, or server environment/file permissions.

Also make sure your memory limit is at least 32megs by printing php_info() somewhere. (i don't think this is a memory problem though)≥

It's a core issue related to broken code of some contributed module.
You may try to patch your core with patch: #495194: Fatal error: Unsupported operand types in form.inc on line 511 cause WSOD or some other solution described there.

Is this still an active issue?

Going to go with no...