.htaccess won't allow access

I have searched the forum, and read a fair bit on using .htaccess, but I can't lick this problem:

I get the pop up that asks for user name and password, but it will not accept anything that I thought I had for users and passwords.

Am I creating passwords wrong?

htpasswd -c /usr/local/apache_ssl/users admin
( no -c for additional users)

my .htaccess looks like this: (inside /user/local/apache_ssl/htdocs/php)

AuthName "Admin"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /us/local/apache_ssl/users
require valid-user

(Are there special rights that that .htaccess or the users file needs?)

In my http.conf file, the AllowOverride line was inside a <Directory> for /usr/local/apache_ssl/htdocs which I changed from 'none' to AuthConfig.

So then I try to access http://myserver/php/info.php with user admin; I get the authentication screen a few times until I am told I am denied.

I have compiled the SSL capability in, but am not using it right now. Does that affect the authentication process?

veggie2u