[TYPO3-english] upgrading 4.2 -> 4.5 generates Broken Rootline error

[jpeterson at fxdd.com]

I am upgrading a typo3 site from 4.2->4.5 and after going through the upgrade wizard all pages have an upside down/ backwards typo3 logo with the following error:

Oops, an error occured!

The requested page didn't have a proper connection to the tree-root!

(Broken rootline)

I tried removing realurl extension but that didn't fix it.
I tried accessing the page via its ID  (eg  ?p=234) and that didn't work either.
I also get the same error when I select "view" in the backend.

Any ideas on where I should start looking in the BE to solve this problem?

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