Error upon new install

OK, I’ve used several open source, PHP based software packages before, so I believe I’ve done everything correctly, according to the install instructions.

I just downloaded the latest version of the software today.

I uploaded all files, changed by config.php settings, etc. (I can’t remember name of the config file, but I named it according to instructions), with my own database info in there.

When I go to any page now, including the home page of the site, or the admin page, I get this error:

Fatal error: Call to a member function set_prefix() on a non-object in /home/ausaraus/public_html/newsite/wp-settings.php on line 255.

This must mean that an object is being referenced that does not exist, which sometimes can be the result of not all of the files being uploaded properly, so I tried to re-upload the whole site, and still get the same error.

What could be wrong????? This is so bizarre.

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p.s. and YES, I did go to the install page first, in the admin folder, and it set up my database for me, along with my tables, and I checked inside of my phpMyAdmin, and the tables are all in my database. I saw the “back office” for a brief minute, but now I can’t even get into that anymore. Same error.

Could this be a permissions problem???? Very strange.