'SmartyException' a.k.a. blank admin login or server 500 error

[MissChief]

Just completed an install of PrestaShop 1.5.3.1 on an Apache server. Ran into tons of permission issues, but was able to solve these successfully. The store front is up and running, however, when accessing the admin login, I get the following error (enabled development mode/debugging in order to get the error):

 

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'SmartyException' with message 'unable to write file /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/cache/smarty/compile/wrt5117dec4713fe5.28510496' in /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/tools/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_write_file.php:44 Stack trace: #0 /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/tools/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_template.php(201): Smarty_Internal_Write_File::writeFile('/home/login_handle_XYZ/d...', '<?php /* Smarty...', Object(Smarty)) #1 /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/tools/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_templatebase.php(155): Smarty_Internal_Template->compileTemplateSource() #2 /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/classes/controller/AdminController.php(1152): Smarty_Internal_TemplateBase->fetch() #3 /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/classes/controller/Controller.php(185): AdminControllerCore->display() #4 /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/classes/Dispatcher.php(348): ControllerCore->run() #5 /home/login_handle_XYZ/domain in /home/login_handle_XYZ/domains/somedomain.eu/public_html/tools/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_write_file.php on line 44

 

What should I do to fix this?

(Changed login info and domain name to something more generic, i.e login_handle_XYZ and somedomain.eu.)

 

Beofre entering the development mode, the admin login page just came up blank in Firefox, and gave a 500 error in IE.

 

Thanks for any thoughts!