I'm not able to reproduce. How did you do the upgrade? What page/action causes that error?

I just copied the new files over the old files but only the files of a different size than the old.  The first action that caused it was when I tried to run "upgrade.php"  Now I can not get away from the error.  It shows up with any refresh of any page.

A file may have changed even if it has the same size. I don't however think this is the case. There weren't almost any changes to the core between 1.10.2 -> 1.10.3.

Just in case try removing your engine directory completely (back up the settings.php), replace it with the latest one from 1.10.3 and place settings.php back into it.

This sounds like a PHP 5.3 vs 5.4 problem.

Are you sure you are running PHP 5.4? Odd that 1.10.2 would have worked and 1.10.3 doesn't. Maybe the PHP version got downgraded somehow on your host when you switched?

I thought that worked but now I am getting a different error.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[' in /home/barespac/public_html/engine/classes/Elgg/Di/ServiceProvider.php on line 194

#Evan my cpanel says I am running php 5.3

PHP version 5.3.28

You'll need to upgrade your php to 5.5 or higher.

PHP 5.4 is enough. No need to go all the way to 5.5. (You can if you like to, though.)

Well I got it to working by reinstalling using Softaculous from arvixe.  Now just have to merge my old database with the new one I had to create.

I have no clue what was causing the problem.  It persisted even after upgrading to php 5.5.

Thanks for all the help guys, you are great.

Syntax error is 100% bad PHP version issue. If you see it after upgrade, that means that you still use old PHP. Did you restart your web server and or your PHP CGI process? What version shows up in phpinfo?