The ioncube loader can be a bit tricky to install and get working correctly. One tip is this - if you have shell access on your server, login and do this command:
php [script_name]
Make sure you use the script that is giving you trouble - you might find some useful errors noted here which help you debug your ioncube installation.
Also, on 1&1 hosting (and possibly others), you can add a "php.ini" file to specify run time loading of the ioncube loader. Create the file "php.ini" and add this line:
zend_extension = "/<home dir>/htdocs/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so"
(Of course, put in your path to the loader you are using.)
NOTE: You MUST put this php.ini file into the directory where the script resides - at least in my case putting in under your htdocs directory does not make it work going into sub-directories, as you would expect.