template issues ever since uprading wordpress worked in 2.5

See this FAQ:
Why is there no Page Template option when writing or editing a Page?

This is not the problem – -I have the correct codes on the top of my template files–again all these were working before upgrading from 2.5 to 2.7 and now 2.8 – – works find in my local version of 2.5

Have you checked whether any of your templates contain older, non-supported, template tags?

here’s one of my templates that doesn’t show up – -seems right to me – –

<?php
/*
Template Name: sideless2 template
*/
?>
<?php

// Make sure that people are signed in when they view this page
auth_redirect();
?>

<?php get_header();?>

<div id=”content4″>
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<div class=”post” id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>”>

<div class=”meta”>

</div>
<div class=”entry”>
<?php the_content(__(‘Continue Reading »’)); ?>
<?php wp_link_pages(); ?>
<p class=”post-tags”>
<?php if (function_exists(‘the_tags’)) the_tags(‘Tags: ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘
‘); ?>
</p>
</div>

</div>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>

<p>
<?php _e(‘Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.’); ?>
</p>

<?php endif; ?>

<p align=”center”>
<?php posts_nav_link(‘ – ‘,’« Prev’,’Next »’) ?>
</p>
</div>
<!– <?php if(function_exists(‘wp_print’)) { print_link(); } ?> –>
<div id=”widecolumn3″ >

</div>
<?php get_footer();?>

It appears OK – apart from the fact that I don’t know anything about auth_redirect(). It might be worth commenting that out. I’m also a bit dubious about:

<!-- <?php if(function_exists('wp_print')) { print_link(); } ?> -->

Why is it inside an HTML comment? If you want to comment it out, it might be better to use PHP comment syntax:

<?php //if(function_exists('wp_print')) { print_link(); } ?>

Suggestion: make a copy of your current page.php file and simply add a custom template name to it but don’t change anything else. Upload that as test.php and see if it shows up in your Page Template dropdown. If it does, then the fault would seem to be in your custom templates somewhere. If it doesn’t, perhaps there’s a problem in the theme generally (or even your current WP install) or you have a bad plugin.