friendlier error message for mysql 'max_user_connections'

Question

I have a website that is MySQL/PHP. Occasionally, I cannot connect because of

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]:
User foo has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /home/foo/public_html/utilities.php

I use a discount web host service and can't really prevent it from happening occasionally. (At least I don't think I can.) How can I give the user a friendlier message than this crypic one?

Answer 1

Pear MDB2

I would use Pear MD2B, better error message, good layer between your code and the database too.

There are a lot more benefits as well. It is pretty easy to change your existing code as well.

Answer 2

If you turn off displaying errors (which you should probably do in production anyway), then you can then print your own error if the connection attempt fails.

ini_set('display_errors', false);
if (!$link = mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass)) {
    die('could not connect...');
}

If you can't change the ini setting, you can suppress the warning with @

if (!$link = @mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass)) {
    die('could not connect...');
}

If you suppress the warning, you won't be able to see why the connection failed, which may or may not be what you want. However you could instead log the errors.