I\'ve asked the system admins to install mcrypt on the server, and they say everything is OK. But when I run my simple script I get this.
Warning
Try this for your mcrypt problem:
mv -i /etc/php5/conf.d/mcrypt.ini /etc/php5/mods-available/
sudo php5enmod mcrypt
sudo service apache2 restart
It's a bug with the location of the mcrypt.ini file.
I had the same bug, I did a cp instead of a mv to be sure but it solved the problem.
For PHP not working, if you get phpmyadmin working (even with the mcrypt error), it means PHP is working (because phpmyadmin uses PHP). But in your example
echo $row['details']; ?>
change
to and try again?