PHP require_once code is not working any more

Question

Before updating to Dreamweaver CC14 (from CS5.5), my php "require_once" files were working fine. When I imported the "ste" file into CC2014, and upload the files as usual, I get this error:
Warning: require_once(/var/chroot/home/content/d/m/w/dmwebcreation/html/includes/_footer.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/content/d/m/w/dmwebcreation/html/dmweb-2/index.php on line 15
Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required '/var/chroot/home/content/d/m/w/dmwebcreation/html/includes/_footer.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/php5_3/lib/php') in /home/content/d/m/w/dmwebcreation/html/dmweb-2/index.php on line 15
This is the php code that I am using in order to have these files added to any page and any directory.
<?php
   $path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
   $path .= "/includes/_footer.php";
   require_once($path);
?>
This is the location for my test file:    http://dm-webcreation.com/dmweb-2/index.php
I have Dreamweaver CC 2014 set up as "Links Relative to SITE ROOT" ... so that these files brought in from any files in any direction.
Has something changed in CC 2014?

Answer 1

I am using "Links Relative to Site Root" because of my "includes" files which I need to have relative to the site root so that it will not matter where I place the main files, I can still use the "includes" files as "templates" (for my menu, header, footer, copyright line, etc.) inside any file in any directory. The idea for using this "links relative to site root" coding came from: http://css-tricks.com/php-include-from-root/
You will see that it is not just the php include file that is giving me problem, but even the image I placed on the page will not show up online.
Interestingly, this webpage shows up without problem on my localhost testing server, but (as of this past week) it does not show up properly online.
I have a virtual host set up as a localhost testing server in the C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf  file like this:
The setup uses http://site1 as my local host like this:
     <VirtualHost *:80>
       DocumentRoot "c:/users/...../documents/@Websites/dm-webcreation"
       ServerName site1
     </VirtualHost>
I manage several websites in the same hosting online, so I use "site1" as one website, and "site2" as another website for the local host testing server. In my remote hosting, I host all each website in a different directory of my main hosting (dm-webcreation.com) and point each website's domain name to that directory.
And this works correctly on my localhost for the website. Both the image file and the php include file show up perfectly.
My remote server is set up like this Dreamweaver CC2014:
     FTP Address: dm-webcreation.com
      Root Directory:  /dmweb-2/
     Web URL: www.dm-webcreation.com
My testing server is set up like this in Dreamweaver CC2014 (this matches my VirtualHost set up):
     Server Folder: C:\Users\.....\documents\@Websites\dm-webcreation\
     Web URL: http://site1/
I do receive this Dreamweaver error when saving the testing server set up:
The URL prefex "/" of your testing server does not match the URL prefix "/dmweb-2/" of your site. Since you are using site relative links it is possible that your links will display  incorrectly at runtime...
The strange thing is that I have three websites that were all set up the same way and they all worked fine until I imported them into this new version of Dreamweaver CC2014.
That's why I am so puzzled. I have created this simple page (www.z.dm-webcreation.com/dmweb-2) just to try to discover what has changed.
The other websites have the exact same "link relative to site root" in them, but they work without any problem. (www.airpyramid.com , www.leofenton.com ,  www.dev.casacristianavida.com ).
Either something in my hosting has changed or Dreamweaver's Site Manager works differently...
I AM REALLY PUZZLED!!