unserialize() function does not work on a variable from the MySQL table on new server

[robing]

We just switched our website over to a new server. There is a part of my PHP software that pulls out a serialized data value from the MySQL table, and puts it into a variable, and then it's supposed to unserialize().I never had this issue on any other servers (and this exact code is used on many different servers..), but I'm getting an issue where the value fails to unserialize - it returns false (blank). HOWEVER, if I copy the exact value, put it into another $var, and then unserialize($var) it, it works perfectly fine into an array... they are the exact same values. One works, the other doesn't.Check out the following link to visualize what I mean.. http://paulmasoumi.com/admin/test.phpAnd the PHP code on this page is:\[code\]<?include 'start.php';$var = 'a:8:{i:0;s:0:"";i:1;s:11:"New Listing";i:2;s:11:"Just Listed";i:3;s:9:"New Price";i:4;s:17:"Exclusive Listing";i:5;s:12:"Just Reduced";i:6;s:31:"Great Price!;Showroom Condition";i:7;s:42:"Featured In;Dream Homes of Canada Magazine";}';echo 'Echoing $var:<br />';echo $var;echo '<br />';echo 'Echoing $settings[\'remarksdisplay\'] retrieved from mysql database field:<br />';echo $settings['remarksdisplay'];echo '<br />';echo '<br />';echo 'When you run print_r(unserialize($var)):<br />';print_r(unserialize($var));echo '<br />';echo 'When you run print_r(unserialize($settings[\'remarksdisplay\'])):<br />';print_r(unserialize($settings['remarksdisplay']));echo '<br />';echo '<br />';echo 'When you run IF statement to see if $settings[\'remarksdisplay\']==$var:<br />';if($settings['remarksdisplay']==$var) {echo "EQUAL";} else {echo 'not equal';}?>\[/code\]I've also checked the server settings regarding the serialize() and unserialize() functions... Check out these two settings:http://www.paulmasoumi.com/admin/phpinfo.phphttp://demo.brixwork.com/admin/phpinfo.phpSettings involving serialization of strings, magic quotes etc. are all identical. What am I missing???