Congrats on working out the permission bit. Good Job! Wagerboy, take a close read of that “Application Warning” message, and compare it to the first error message you posted about. The new message is telling you the same thing that the first error message you wrote about in your original post told you:
The program can’t connect to your database.
I know you entered the requested data into the config.php you mentioned the script using, and you got past that point. Now, another place in the script cannot properly connect to the database. This makes me suspects you might have some paths “borked”, or some other incomplete installation/configuration step or variable, as the part of the code that is trying to connect to the database now fails at a different (this) point.
Really, at this point carefully reviewing all the config options,browsing through the code at around the point where the error occurred, and double-checking to make sure that all the “includes” the program requires actually got included are about the only suggestions I can make.
One last thing:You have not indicated what version of PHP you are running. If you are running PHP5, it is possible that the program was written for PHP4, which handles passed variable differently than PHP5. If you are sure all your configs, etc. are correct, you might try resetting your webspace to use PHP4 and trying again. This might be particularly indicated if the script is older, which might suggest it was written for PHP4. Again, without seeing the code for the script(s), it is really hard to be more specific.
Have you checked in with others using the script via the author’s, or other, forum and asked those who have actually used the script what the problem might be?
You could point me to the script and, as I said, I’ll try to give it a run on Dreamhost later in the evening when/if I can find time. Without seeing the code, I am only guessing from my experience what the problem(s) might be (though it appears you are making progress!)
Don’t give up. When testing modified scripts, make sure you clear your caches (and sometimes session/cookies), and reload the impacted urls so you are sure you are seeing the full effect of your changes. Good Luck!
–rlparker