PHP - MySQL connection not working: 2002 No such file or directory

Question

I tried to use WordPress, and it would never work. I have apache and mysql running, the accounts and database are all set up, there are no typos. So I tried to make a simple connection:

<?php
    $conn = mysql_connect('localhost', 'USER', 'PASSWORD');
    if(!$conn) {
        echo 'Error: ' . mysql_errno() . ' - ' . mysql_error();
    }
?>

And I always get this:

Error: 2002 - No such file or directory

What file or directory?? Any idea what might be causing this? Thanks.

Also, I'm on a mac, Snow Leopard, with built in apache and the x86_64 dmg installer of MySQL.

UPDATE: Ok, I found that the socket is at /tmp/mysql.sock, so In php.ini, I replaced all occurrences of the wrong path with that. I'll see if it works now.

Answer 1

I'd check your php.ini file and verify the mysql.default_socket is set correctly and also verify that your mysqld is correctly configured with a socket file it can access. Typical default is "/tmp/mysql.sock".

Answer 2

Not that it helps you much, but in the recent versions (and even less recent) of MySQL, error code 2002 means “Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket [name-of-socket]”, so that might tell you a bit more.

Answer 3

First, ensure MySQL is running. Command: mysqld start

If you still cannot connect then: What does your /etc/my.cnf look like?

The other 2 posts are correct in that you need to check your socket because 2002 is a socket error.

A great tutorial on setting up LAMP is: http://library.linode.com/lamp-guides/centos-5.3/index-print

Answer 4

If you use Linux: the path to the mysql.sock file is wrong. This is usually because you are using (LAMPP) XAMPP and it isn't in /tmp/mysql.sock

Open the php.ini file and find this line:

mysql.default_socket

And make it

mysql.default_socket = /path/to/mysql.sock