If one wants to upgrade the OpenACS kernel of a pre-existing installation from 5.5 to 5.8, and chooses to "install/upgrade from repository", then one stays in the same OpenACS branch (like oacs-5-5). The installer offers newer versions from the same branch. So, i am not sure from what state to which other state you try to proceed.
When installing new version of the kernel, one has to use either the tar file or a CVS checkout.
In case you have a broken update (e.g. the kernel reports to be in openacs 5.8, and you do not have apm__register_parameter/10 in your database), then one can either fix the database, or try to figure out, what went wrong during the upgrade. Fixing means to source the upgrade file mentioned above with "psql -f ..."
In order to try to find the cause of the problem you are experiencing, one needs the old state of the database (e.g. a backup) and continue from there, look whether the upgrade script in question is sourced when upgrading the kernel, etc.
The message from xoctl-core is not an error, but a warning and says that you can't call that particular function from survey via the ::xo::db interface, something you do not want probably anyhow.
