SSL and Environment Variables

Greetings All, A little step back in time, if you don't mind, for a problem with PHP 3.0.12 running under Apache 1.3.9 with Apache-SSL (RedHat 6.1). I've searched the archives here and the relevant Web sites but couldn't find a solution or explanation. Maybe I've missed something. Variables I pass through the URL do not get passed to my scripts when I use an SSL connection. So, browsing to the URL https://www.somedomain.com/script.php3?var=2 will produce a null result for var when I test it within the script using HTTP_GET_VARS['var']. However, everything works fine using a non-secure http://www.somedomain.com/script.php3?var=2. Yes, enable_track_vars is set in php.ini. And no, I can't upgrade anything since I don't own the server. Does this even sound like a PHP problem? Any help here would be greatly appreciated. TIA, Ed French