Not sure what happened, rewrote the sql from scratch and I think it hates me because it now works with this code. Still have no idea what is going on as it looks the same as orig other than the mediumint
$sql = "CREATE TABLE $table_name (
kudoid mediumint(9) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
kudomsg text NOT NULL,
kudoagent text NOT NULL,
kudocust text NOT NULL,
kudoacct int(16) NOT NULL,
kudoclient varchar(100) NOT NULL,
kudoloc text NOT NULL,
kudoentry TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
kudoadmin text NOT NULL,
kudopic varchar(55) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (kudoid)
);";