With a sigh of embarrassement, I confess to resolving the issue. Adding the special account in the two very last lines of the _config.php allowed everything to work correctly.
We've moved the forum!
Please use forum.silverstripe.org for any new questions
(announcement).
The forum archive will stick around, but will be read only.
You can also use our Slack channel
or StackOverflow to ask for help.
Check out our community overview for more options to contribute.