Help with.htaccess/.htpasswd

[bsccwebmaster]

Hi
First post, so please be gentle!
I am trying to set up limited access to a folder on my website, and have been playing with .htaccess and .htpasswd files. Now, I know that I have entered the correct path for the .htpasswd file as I get a password request up when I browse to the index file in the folder where the .htaccess file is stored. I then enter the username/password I added to the .htpasswd file, it accepts them, but the page displayed is blank, even though the content exists.
My .htaccess code is:

AuthName "Website Admin"
AuthUserFile /path/to/.htpasswd
AuthType basic
Require valid-user

and my password file contains one login record.
Am I missing something?
I have removed the .htacces file and it works as expected, so it must be something to do with that but I don't know what else I need to do/add/change to get it working.
Many thanks
Martin

[Scleppel]

Now, I know that I have entered the correct path for the .htpasswd file as I get a password request up when I browse to the index file in the folder where the .htaccess file is stored. I then enter the username/password I added to the .htpasswd file, it accepts them, but the page displayed is blank, even though the content exists.

Do you have an index file or are you expecting a directory index?
What is your index file called?

If you have an index file, try adding

DirectoryIndex yourindexfile

or if you don't try adding

Options +Indexes

Also try adding

# HTTP Error 401 - Unauthorized
ErrorDocument 401 /

(You could change / to a file for people who fail to login.)

[bsccwebmaster]

I have published the files (it's a frameset, with an index file which loads the frameset together), and if I type the path to the index file in my browser, it asks for the password and then displays an blank page. I then deleted both .htaccess and .htpassword, and tried to open one of the images in one of the subfolders, but got an error indicating that there was a .htaccess in the subfolder, though it did not show up in the site browser via Dreamweaver. I then installed an FTP client and set that to show hidden files, and that did not show any .htaccess files either. I then tried to delete the remote files (including folders), but got an error when trying to delete the folder the images were in.
Anyway, to cut a long story short - my plan was to create an protected area for specific people to be able to access photographs for download, but the site is running out of space and I am unable to progress this.
Many thanks for your suggestions - if the space issue gets sorted, I will have a try of these and see what happens.
Thanks again
Martin