Just to check... when you manually installed
you edited include/config.php with your mysql info.
Then you uploaded it and browsed to the /docs directory, clicking the links to create the database tables and populate them.


Warning: include(../include/lang/.php)

2 things I notice here ...
first language isn't set,
2nd, ../include is incorrect.


If you use the admin panel, configuration page. Is the info still filled out? If this will be installed in the root directory of you site, BASE PATH should be blank, otherwise it should contain /directoryname where directoryname is the name of the directory you have installed to.

If that info is not sticking, there may be a problem with the settings table, possibly not fully created during installation.

If you have access to phpmyadmin , you could verify that the phplinks_settings table exists, and that it is getting populated. If not, the admin panel includes modules, one is called mysql query box. It will allow you to view the tables and browse their content.