they are evil and deprecated

Not sure if this start_session call is really needed here.

added a serverProtocol function that correctly returns the used protocol even if the ssl connection is terminated at a reverse_proxy or at a load balancer

someone broke this completely. Hope it works again. Please check your apache error log and turn php notices on if you work on ajax call

of timezone detection

check during ownCloud upgrade if all the installed apps are compatible with the new ownCloud version. Disable them if not