Ok. It would seem to me that neither the configure, make or install failed. (parts of ./configure are meant to fail, thats how it determines which bits it can and cant use on this system)
However, I am convinced that the reporting on 1.6.10 as the version when you installed 1.6.13 IS the problem.
Question 1. Does the shell you are on have precompiled eggdrops for you to use? If it does then you are probably running that, although this is possible with local modules through the use of symlinks. this could/would cause a crash.
If not, then please seek out and destroy any directorys containing old eggdrop stuff, or, of course delete ALL eggdrop stuffand start again. Its possible that there are two symlinks to eggdrop, one to 1.6.10 and one to 1.6.13 - due to being in the wrong dir (or summat) you are executing the wrong one. look for symlinks.
I'm also pretty confused about you having to change permissions - never had to do that before - what *nix system are you running?
The shell i use does not have pre-compiled eggdrops for me to use. I have deleted ALL old files and started again several times :-/
The thing with the file attributes was my fault, i was decompressing the eggdrop.tar file then uploading it (due to my lack of shell knowledge). However, ppslim put me right on that one.
the command line i use is; eggdrop -n , and my shell provider does not provide precompiled eggdrops.
This may be a wild shot, but give it a try anyways. At your shell prompt, do 'which eggdrop'. If you are issuing 'eggdrop -n', try changing to your /home/user/eggdrop/ dir and do './eggdrop -n'. The './' tells the shell to use the binary in the working dir, rather than one in the system's path. They may have a bad compile or badly configured one installed for global use on there, which could be the cause of all your problems.
Ok, i have managed to figure out the problem (at least i think i have).
I deleted all the old files then, out of curiosity, tried to run the eggdrop. To my suprise, it ran (although it spewed a lot of error messages about the lack of modules and the like). So it would seem, that unbeknown to me, my shell has a presinstalled eggdrop1.6.10 !
I uploaded the 1.6.10 eggy and installed/configured (i presume this is the correct thing to do) and low and behold, all my problems have gone!
Now i feel like a bit of an idiot. But believe me, at no time was i told there was an eggdrop there (my shell account was empty with no files on).
Thanks to ppslim, egghead, photon and tainted for all your help. I wouldn't have fathomed it out without you.
Tainted- am i correct in thinking that if I was to try 1.6.13 again, using ./eggdrop would force it to use the 1.6.13 rather than the 1.6.10? Though tbh, after all this hassle, I am just happy (overjoyed!) to get it running and stable.