Can Not log in to Bluehost Joomla

[jitterbug]

I just created a new account in my Bluehost WHM and installed Joomla! 2.5.16 with Simplescripts. Next I tried to log in to Joomla! by using the designated URL ending in /administator/ ... I see the login screen. I use the user name and password that I just created 2 minutes earlier (now 4 hours earlier), and I get the error message "Username and password do not match or you do not have an account yet." Didn't I just create the account? I tried to log in with Firefox, Chrome, and Explorer. Same story.

Bluehost tells me they have no answer and that I should check the Joomla website. So here I am. I've read similar complaints and tried their hit-and-miss solutions like using "admin" as my user name (why that would work, I don't know), and cleared my cache of cookies. I can't do any back end stuff until I log in to my account, but it won't let me log in to my account. Okay, I can access cPanel, so maybe I need to edit a file? But why in the world would Joomla require that!?

With WordPress, this is a 5 minute process. With Joomla, it's been hours of frustration with no answer available on the 'net, and believe me, I've Googled this to death.

Is there a solution to this that doesn't require a computer science degree or voodoo magic? I was told Joomla was "easy".

Thank you.

[jitterbug]

Okay, so I dropped the "administrator/" from the login address and got to another Joomla page with a login form. This form does not accept my user name and password, returning an error message "Username and password do not match or you do not have an account yet." Again, I thought that by installing Joomla on Bluehost, my account was set up. Joomla disagrees.

So then I clicked on "Don't have an account?" and filled out the User Registration form. Name, Username, Password, Email Address. Simple, right? Wrong. I get "The username you entered is not available. Please pick another username." I tried 12 different user names in 3 different browsers. Sometimes I get the same error message, and sometimes I get "Could not instantiate mail function" and "Registration failed: An error was encountered while sending the registration email. A message has been sent to the administrator of this site."

That last one is a crock, because I'M the administrator of the site and I'm not getting any such emails.

So, I can't log in to my brand new Joomla account and I can't even register into whatever this is that I'm being required to register in to. And people swear by Joomla?

[conlippert]

I would delete the whole thing and start over. Sounds like something went wrong. I do this regularly in Bluehost but I upload the installation package in the file manager, unpack it and then go to the browser. The database needs to be created first but prefer not using simplescripts.

[jitterbug]

When in doubt, re-boot, yes? Okay, sounds like a plan. Thanks...