mnogoclient + mysql can't connect to DB when trying to automatically configure

Binary package hint: mnogosearch-common

1. Ubuntu 8.04.1
2. mnogosearch-client & mnogosearch-mysql v. 3.3.6-1ubuntu0.1
3. Connects to database and runs the included scripts
4. MySQL driver: #1045: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)

I basically wanted to experiment with mnogosearch on my own local computer, so I set up mysql with a basic root/root account with access to everything. I'm aware that's not the most secure way to do things, but since it has no access to the outside world, I don't really care. I then installed mnogo-common and mnogo-mysql. When it got to the configuration part, I selected the following options:

Overwrite Config Files: yes
Indexing: blob
Database: mysql
Username/Pass: mnogosearch/mnogosearch
DB Name: mnogosearch
Is database local?: Yes (I have also tried saying 'no' and then using localhost/3306 for the host/port with the same results)
Automatically configure DB?: Yes
DB Admin user/pass: root/root

End result:
MySQL driver: #1045: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)
14 queries sent, 0 succeeded, 14 failed

It's as if I had not typed in anything for the password, since I then tried
$ mysql --user=root
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)
$ mysql --user=root --password=root
Welcome to MySQL (blah blah blah)
mysql>

What's going on?