PhpMyAdmin – Fix PhpMyAdmin Error in Ubuntu 18.04

I have resolved the issue. Indeed, my config file was being ignored. I had been copying config.inc.sample.php to config.inc.php in the top level directory of the website (/var/www/html/pma).

However, on CentOS 6 there is a separate config directory -- /etc/phpMyAdmin/. Once I copied my config there, everything works ok.

In a comment, I asked you to run the following queries to diagnose your issue:

select User, Host, Password
from mysql.user
where User = "[The Username]";

select User, Db, Host
from mysql.db
where User = "[The Username]"

Your answer suggests the user you created is balsam. This makes your issue very obvious -- you're attempting to connect to MySQL as user me, please use the correct username balsam.

Also, to make sure you're using the correct password you can run the following command:

select PASSWORD("[INSERT PASSWORD HERE]"), Password
from mysql.user
where user = 'balsam';

If running the previous commands yields the same value for both columns, you're using the correct password. If they aren't the same you'll need to either reset the password or delete the user grants and recreate the user account.

Make sure you're using the correct username, and not "me" as you posted in your question.