can pull - cannot push - with or without hgrc(?) auth issues

[John Stean]

Hello, thanks for the help so far on this. I am so close to having this 
set up, but having one last issue.

I can pull from my new repository over https, and form this I have to 
provide uname and password that I set up using htpasswd.

Without hgrc I get this:

C:\devel>hg push --debug
using https:///*******/devel
http auth: user john, password 
****************************************************************
sending between command
http auth: user john, password 
****************************************************************
pushing to https://john:***@********/devel
sending capabilities command
http auth: user john, password 
****************************************************************
capabilities: unbundle=HG10GZ,HG10BZ,HG10UN branchmap lookup 
changegroupsubset
sending heads command
http auth: user john, password 
****************************************************************
searching for changes
common changesets up to b772f4a11770 0d0a7743b107 09c4d831d7b0
sending branchmap command
http auth: user john, password 
****************************************************************
1 changesets found
list of changesets:
b9f0612f608296a51117fa87a744ca37a8d98f8b
bundling changes: 0 chunks
bundling changes: 1 chunks
bundling changes: 2 chunks
bundling changes: 3 chunks
bundling manifests: 0 chunks
bundling manifests: 1 chunks
bundling manifests: 2 chunks
bundling manifests: 3 chunks
bundling files:article.php 0 chunks
bundling files: article.php 1 chunks
bundling files:article.php 2 chunks
bundling files:article.php 3 chunks
sending unbundle command
sending 429 bytes
http auth: user john, password 
****************************************************************
abort: authorization failed

WITH hgrc the only difference is the final auth returns:
abort: HTTP Error 500: Internal error

I have tried no hgrc file
an hgrc file with and without [path] (I only need [path] section for a 
pull dont i?)
I have tried adding the https uname password in an [auth] section, no change

Whenever I have the hgrc file, it throws a 500 response for the last 
auth, and without the hgrc file it just returns authorization failed.

Can you offer any help here please? I am wondering if this is an apache 
setup issue rather than mercurial?