[eluser]Wittner[/eluser]
Ok, just for the record. I opened the database.php file and edited the:
$db['default']['database'] = "xxx_my_admin";
entry to read:
$db['default']['database'] = "xxx_my_adminl";
that is to say, I added an 'l' on to the end of the db name. As I had found previously, this was giving me the same error but *without* the dodgy characters at the end of the name. I had previously messed around with a few versions of the name to try to force the error to give some other feedback I could use. Anyhow, this time, when I changed the db name back to the original by removing the 'l' - it worked! I don't know what to say - perhaps the error was staying in cache somewhere - but I closed down my FF browser and opened it again on each iteration of the problem. I dunno, sometimes being a programmer just sucks! At least I've got friendly and knowledgeable folk who's help I can rely on here. Thanks a million guys for your help, hopefully that's the end of that error,
cheers,
Wittner