WHMSonic/Shoutcast Admin 2.1.0 False-Positive IonCube Crash Errors

[nwtg]

This is a recurring issue I've come across on at least 4 cPanel environments; two dedicated, two VPS containers.
I don't know if this is even something within the boundaries of the engineers, but I still wanted to post about it.

On August 1st I obtained a 1yr WHMSonic/Shoutcast Admin Pro license. I ran the install on a cPanel dedicated server and everything worked splendidly for a few days. However, a few days later while reviewing /usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log, I discovered errors relating to IonCube failing in cPanel as well as what look like permissions errors for the cPanel php.ini.

I then switched from my dedicated cPanel server over to my SolusVM system, created a VPS container, installed cPanel/WHM, moved my Shoutcast license I.P., and ran the install again for WHMSonic. The same issue occurred on the fresh install, on the fresh VPS.

Another VPS client of mine experienced the same problem after installing WHMSonic just today. Below I have pasted the output from the client's VPS, which is the same error, verbatim, which was thrown on my cPanel dedicated, as well as my personal cPanel VPS container:

Installing IonCubeLoader
Determining PHP version
Installing IonCube Loader binaries
Activating IonCube Loader extension in /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini
Failed to activate IonCube Loader in php.ini

cp: cannot remove `/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini': Operation not permitted
[2012-08-27 03:21:07 +0100] warn [checkphpini] Could not edit /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 653
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directives(HASH(0x1376938), '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 608
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directive('max_execution_time', 90, '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/bin/checkphpini line 105
[2012-08-27 03:21:07 +0100] warn [checkphpini] Could not edit /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 653
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directives(HASH(0x1376938), '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 608
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directive('register_globals', 'Off', '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/bin/checkphpini line 109
[2012-08-27 03:21:07 +0100] warn [checkphpini] Could not edit /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 653
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directives(HASH(0x1376938), '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 608
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directive('post_max_size', '55M', '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/bin/checkphpini line 116
[2012-08-27 03:21:07 +0100] warn [checkphpini] Could not edit /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 653
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directives(HASH(0x1376938), '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/PHPINI.pm line 608
        Cpanel::PHPINI::set_directive('upload_max_filesize', '50M', '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty') called at /usr/local/cpanel/bin/checkphpini line 123
Using php Loader: IonCubeLoader
[2012-08-27 03:21:08 +0100] warn [cpanel-install] Could not edit /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/FileUtils.pm line 93
        Cpanel::FileUtils::regex_rep_file('/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini', HASH(0x28596b8), HASH(0x2859768)) called at ./cpanel-install line 86
        main::activate_ioncube('/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty', '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini', 5.2, 'lin') called at ./cpanel-install line 62
[2012-08-27 03:21:08 +0100] warn [cpanel-install] Could not edit /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/FileUtils.pm line 93
        Cpanel::FileUtils::regex_rep_file('/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini', HASH(0x28596b8), HASH(0x2859768)) called at ./cpanel-install line 87
        main::activate_ioncube('/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty', '/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/php.ini', 5.2, 'lin') called at ./cpanel-install line 62

It looks like the WHMSonic installer is trying to modify the cPanel PHP.ini and failing. What interests me is that although the error claims that IonCube is failing to load, the client's script installers [Fant/Softaculous/Installatron] all load and function without issues. Don't these rely on the IonCube loader in order to function properly? This is why I was thinking it's a false-positive.

I'm going to ask my user to uninstall WHMSonic to see if the error goes away too, but I was curious if anyone else had noticed this -- or if anyone can confirm whether or not it's a false positive. Otherwise, I'm not going to bother with WHMSonic anymore. They seem to be falling behind, anyhow.

Peace,
-J.M.