User login issues

Hi guys, newbie here. Over the past few days I’ve been working on creating my site – hotelomega.net – and I’ve got most of it ready for the April 23rd launch. Now I need content so I’ve given the address to a couple of people and temporarily allowed registration. However my friend informs me that he can log in but cannot do anything, can’t make comments, view his profile or even log out. I have attempted to log in as him but the site won’t let me. He is showing up in my dashboard and all his login details are correct, I’ve even made him co-admin, but this problem persists.
For the record I have applied the Easel theme with some cosmetic mods.
I have not set up email for the site yet, is this vital for the registration process or should it just work with me confirming things manually?
Any help much appreciated.