"Rampy" wrote in message
ups.com...
With the lightbulb removed, the outlet does not trip when I flip the
hall light switch (not that I know what that indicates).

With regard to your other question, the answer is (1) "cannot reset
while the hall light switch is on and the hall lights are off".

I've pulled from the wall/ceiling each switch, light, outlet, etc. (all
at the same time), to make sure that no ground wire is touching the
base unit, but to no avail... flipping the light switch for the hall
(with a light bulb present) trips the GFCI outlet. I've gone back
through the manufactures directions for hooking up and have (afaik) the
correct wires connected to the correct nodes on the outlet.

This means the current going into the black wire (of the hall light circuit)
is not all coming back via the white wire. The current can only go to the
ground wire or to the neutral wire of another circuit.

(a) the neutral side of the hall light is connected to a ground wire instead
of the neutral wire
(b) the neutral side of the hall light is connected to a ground wire and the
neutral wire
(c) the neutral side of the hall light is connected to a neutral wire of a
different circuit instead of its own
(d) the neutral side of the hall light is connected to a neutral wire of a
different circuit plus its own

You may be able to identify the above 4 situation by visually inspecting the
junction boxes involved.

(optional) To verify my suspicion, disconnect the white/black pair from the
load side of the GFCI and connect only the black wire to the line side of
the GFCI (there should be two holes, one for power, one for this), and cap
off the white one. I bet you can still turn on the hall light this way. This
just confirm it's one of the 4 possibilties above.

If you are unable to locate the problems by visual inspection. You'd have to
do some more test using a multimeter. The procedure would fill half a page.
Do you want to do it?

Someone else please verify my logic.