Ok not sure what this was causing the issue, but since I am still building my site and still adding content and we have not put it all on the site yet, I decided to delete my databases and usernames and start afresh. For some reason it didnt like the lengths of the database names and length of username even though the length fell within the alotted length something 53 for database name 15 for username or something like that.
I created a new database and new username etc but with shorter lengths even still. I logged into the phpmyadmin with the new username and it worked.
Hope this post helps with some of the phpmyadmin issues
many thanks suggesting to make the length shorter Jack. It seems that is the problem for some reason is it cant cope with long names
best wishes
Kated
