Backup and restore

What is happening is that our server doesn't allow Apache User permissions to use the function is_dir($dir) with any directory below httpdocs.

So when the below function in moodlelib.php is called with $recursive=true this error always happens.

This is a situation that only occurs on Moodle 1.8.3 because Moodle 1.8.2 backup never calls this function with $recursive=true.

function check_dir_exists($dir, $create=false, $recursive=false) {

    global $CFG;

    $status = true;

    if(!is_dir($dir)) {
        if (!$create) {
            $status = false;
        } else {
            umask(0000);
            if ($recursive) {
                // PHP 5.0 has recursive mkdir parameter, but 4.x does not
                $dir = str_replace('\\', '/', $dir); //windows compatibility
                $dirs = explode('/', $dir);
                $dir = array_shift($dirs).'/'; //skip root or drive letter
                foreach ($dirs as $part) {
                    if ($part == '') {
                        continue;
                    }
                    $dir .= $part.'/';
                    if (!is_dir($dir)) {
                        if (!mkdir($dir, $CFG->directorypermissions)) {
                            $status = false;
                            break;
                        }
                    }
                }
            } else {
                $status = mkdir($dir, $CFG->directorypermissions);
            }
        }
    }
    return $status;
}