By auto install I guess you mean a hosting control panel auto install? If permissions are wrong for your directories and you are on shared hosting then you will need to contact your hosting tech support to resolve the issue.
With the manual install do you mean you tried to FTP the files up to the server?
Hi Thanks for responding!
Yes, by manual install I meant FTP’ing the files. And by auto install yes from the control panel I clicked install which does work but when I try to activate I get the fatal error message. I am on godsddy shared hosting (the free account) and they claim I shouldn’t be having any issues. Some things work when I FTP the files and some don’t. I was able to nstall and activate the BP template pack but not BuddyPress do I need them both? I also see that there should be some options under appearance for the template pack but there aren’t. Is there a tutorial on how to use it?
You need both template pack and BP, but template pack is only required if you have an existing theme you want to make BP compatible. There are a couple of guides to setting up the template pack in the BP codex. If I were you though I would run with the BP-default theme.
As much as auto installs are discouraged as they often present issues, in theory it should be a one click install, if it isn’t working then it’s really down to the support desk to try and get it sorted not fob you off, but then on a free account I’m afraid I wouldn’t be expecting too much help also you may find that a free account won’t run WP/BP that well as it will be very restricted in allocated resources.