Importing MySQL database, importing archives

Gallery version (not just "2"): 2.1.2
PHP version (e.g. 4.3.11): 4.3.2
PHPInfo Link (see FAQ): http://gallery.maskee.name/info.php (not there for long!)
Webserver (e.g. Apache 1.3.33): Apache/2.0.46
Database (e.g. MySql 4.0.11): MySQL server version: 3.23.58
Activated toolkits (e.g. NetPbm, GD): GD, ImageMagick, NetPbm
Operating system (e.g. Linux): Linux 2.4.21-47.EL
Browser (e.g. Firefox 1.0): Firefox 1.5.0.7

I imported g2data archives from a previous gallery2 install (my attempt to upgrade produced too many errors to pursue that option; hopefully in the future I'll understand enough about how gallery works to avoid this). Opening gallery now produces these errors:
Warning: Cannot use a scalar value as an array in /var/www/html/gallery2/modules/core/classes/GalleryPhotoItem.class on line 236

Warning: Cannot use a scalar value as an array in /var/www/html/gallery2/modules/core/classes/GalleryPhotoItem.class on line 241

repeated twice, and the display is distorted also, but when you click on the errors the message disappears and the gallery view is restored to normal.

I also imported the records from a mysql backup of gallery2 into my current (clean?) install, and it looks like the records were copied (there were also lots of duplicate records but I assume there was no need to overwrite those). I understand that the sql/database portion of gallery matches text records to the pictures stored in g2data. However the text files are not displayed in the web page. I could find no further detail in your docs on how to handle this - maybe it can't be done, but it should be do-able.
Let me know about that, and if there's a way to get rid of the errors noted above.