BuddyPress.org

Ok so I’m trying to get buddypress working for an academic site Ill be administering and as far asI can see Im on the latest and compatible versions of everything and yet I’m getting the seemingly VERY common “the registration page is blank” issue.

If I create a user and get the system to send them a “heres your account” email they can logon and they get full buddypress functionality. But If I try to get anyone to register the page is always blank.

I’m running:
BuddyPress Version 1.6.1
WordPress 3.4.2.
Theme is “BP Columns Version 1.5.3” which is supposedly 100% BP compatible.

I’ve also made sure that “Anyone can register” is checked in the general settings.

Any ideas? I’ve looked through previous threads on this subject and nothing I’ve read there seems to help.

Any suggestions? I’ at the point of abandoning the idea of using BP at all which would be a shame since I’m normally the WP evangelist in my organisation.