problem running update.php

I have just moved my drupal from one hosting company to another

I am using drupal 5.2

my original host was running mysql 3.23 and php 4.??

my new host is running mysql 5.0.37 and php 5.1.2

the move seemed to have gone problem free, until I updated the the update_status module as it was marked out of date and then ran update.php

update.php either never returns or returns the following error

warning: reset() [function.reset]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /home/xxxxxxx/public_html/update.php on line 523.

The update process was aborted prematurely while running update # in .module. All other errors have been logged. You may need to check the watchdog database table manually.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the problem could be ?

as I said the site seems to working perfectly apart from this

any help gratefully received

Tkgafs