View source for Getting Ready To Start Over

I'm just before giving up and starting over, so I thought I would give this a try.

I had lots of problems installing the wiki. I have it up and running now, but several things aren't working.

The recovery password. I followed the instructions and created the hash. I added it to config.php. I tired it again. And again. It insists that the value is not set. I finally just commented out the whole check (I've done some PHP development). Not as secure, but the problem is non-obvious. The page is password protected and the login works. If nothing happens here, I might try to track it down later.

Themes. Themes don't work. I've tried every possible combination of settings and they simply don't work. The theme I want (nifty) shows up in the Admin Panel. The cached config says the theme is nifty. The database says the theme is nifty. The theme is not nifty. The theme is default.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks for your time.