[Boone Gorges]

Just to be clear: Did you click “Set up a new bbPress installation” at Dashboard > BuddyPress > Forum Setup?

Is there a bb-config.php file in the root of your WP installation? (It should have been created automatically when you did the initial setup.) If so, does it contain the correct database connection information? Do you have access to the database so that you can check whether the tables exist (they should start with wp_bb_)? Is this problem occurring with newly created groups as well as older groups?