new car stereo, No dash or tail lights

My nephew just installed my new car stereo and my tail lights and dash lights don't work. Any ideas?

The same problem happened when my cousin installed my first stereo for me and I believe he ended up sending it straight to the battery because we couldn't figure it out. I had to turn my stereo off when shutting the car off instead of it just going off with the car. Not a big deal for me. When my nephew put this one in, he said he would't have to do that. But now when you turn the car off it will keep resetting itself and my clock and preset stations won't work. Which I don't find a huge deal either. the problem is the lights not working! Had to drive home last night with my 4-ways on. How embarrassing. I want him to wire it back up the way my cousin had it, although if we could get it actually work the way it's supposed to that would be awesome. Can anyone help me? It's a 99 Jeep Wrangler. Thanks in advance!

First, please do not format your posts in a word processing program.  Thanks.

Next, a couple of questions.  Did you use a wiring harness adapter or did you hack into the factory wiring?  If you hacked the wiring, there may be nothing we can do to help you and you'll have to take the vehicle in to a shop.  Did you disconnect your battery when you installed the system?  If not (or even if you did) did you check for blown fuses?

Sorry about that! Copied question from another forum where I got no answers and that's how it carried over.

When I bought the car the harness was already removed, so we didn't have a good start with it from day one. I'm sure whoever put the aftermarket stereo in for the previous owner made a big mess of it.

Battery was disconnected and all fuses have been checked (both under the glove box and under the hood.

I'm sure I'll end up taking it to a shop, but I'm trying to figure out how my cousin hooked it up so we can do that temporarily and I won't get pulled over.

There is a illumination wire behind the deck, if its grounded out then you are gonna loose all dash lights and possibly the tail lights. Try to unplug the deck from the vehicle and verify that any unused wires are not touching metal or each other, make sure that they are taped up individually, then try to trun the vehicle on and check the lights. Also re verify all the fuses, if they look iffy at all change them as I have had fuses that looked fine but were not, you should be using a meter to do this.

Doesn't happen at the12volt very often!