ssh login with public key still asks for password

Question

I've searched through all topics I could find on this but can't get it to work. I've used keygen to create the keys, copy-id to send to server and changed all the permissions on server per other posts. I'm not seeing permission errors or authentication errors either but maybe I need to enable more debugging? Here is a part of the debug log:

debug1: Offering public key: RSA SHA25******* /home/mike/.ssh/id_rsa
debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method
debug1: Next authentication method: password

wondering about the line "we did not send a packet, disable method? I can log in with password after that.

Server is: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-47-generic x86_64)

Here is my sshd_config:

#       $OpenBSD: sshd_config,v 1.101 2017/03/14 07:19:07 djm Exp $

# This is the sshd server system-wide configuration file.  See
# sshd_config(5) for more information.

# This sshd was compiled with PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

# The strategy used for options in the default sshd_config shipped with
# OpenSSH is to specify options with their default value where
# possible, but leave them commented.  Uncommented options override the
# default value.

Port 2200
#AddressFamily any
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
#ListenAddress ::

#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key

# Ciphers and keying
#RekeyLimit default none

# Logging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel VERBOSE

# Authentication:
AllowUsers mike
LoginGraceTime 60
PermitRootLogin no
#StrictModes yes
#MaxAuthTries 6
#MaxSessions 10

PubkeyAuthentication yes

# Expect .ssh/authorized_keys2 to be disregarded by default in future.
AuthorizedKeysFile      ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

#AuthorizedPrincipalsFile none

#AuthorizedKeysCommand none
#AuthorizedKeysCommandUser nobody

# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
#HostbasedAuthentication no
# Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for
# HostbasedAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
#IgnoreRhosts yes

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
#PasswordAuthentication yes
#PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with
# some PAM modules and threads)
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes
#KerberosGetAFSToken no

# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes
#GSSAPIStrictAcceptorCheck yes
#GSSAPIKeyExchange no

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
# PasswordAuthentication.  Depending on your PAM configuration,
# PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
# If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without
# PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication
# and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.
UsePAM yes

#AllowAgentForwarding yes
#AllowTcpForwarding yes
#GatewayPorts no
X11Forwarding no
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#PermitTTY yes
PrintMotd no
PrintLastLog no
#TCPKeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no
#PermitUserEnvironment no
#Compression delayed
#ClientAliveInterval 0
#ClientAliveCountMax 3
#UseDNS no
#PidFile /var/run/sshd.pid
MaxStartups 2
ClientAliveInterval 600
ClientAliveCountMax 0
#PermitTunnel no
#ChrootDirectory none
#VersionAddendum none

# no default banner path
#Banner none

# Allow client to pass locale environment variables
AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem       sftp    /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server

# Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis
#Match User anoncvs
#       X11Forwarding no
#       AllowTcpForwarding no
#       PermitTTY no
#       ForceCommand cvs server

Answer 1

Changing the line AuthorizedKeysFile ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys and restarting the sshd service worked.