What is a database error?

If you try to enter your page’s URL, but you see nothing except a message Error establishing a database connection, you will have to handle a database error. It may appear as a result of a great variety of reasons:

• Your database login credentials are wrong.

• Your database server is unresponsive.

• Your database has been corrupted.

How to identify and fix the bug step by step

To fix a database connection error, use an HTML website help in 3 steps:

1. Check if a database error occurred also at the back-end

If the database connection error – Error establishing a database connection – occurs also for /wp-admin/, you can go to the step number 2. However, if you see a different message under the /wp-admin/, then you need to repair your database. Go to wp-config.php and add the following line:

define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);

just before:

That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.

Then, visit the page http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php under which you will find two options: Repair Database and Repair and Optimize Database. Click on the further option. Once you are done repairing your database, remember to remove this line – define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true); – from your wp-config.php. Sometimes repairing the database is enough to fix the database error. If not, keep reading.

2. Check data under your wp-config.php

It may happen that you changed your root password or database password, but they stayed unchanged under wp-config.php. So, check the following lines to make sure all data is updated:

define('DB_NAME', 'database-name');

define('DB_USER', 'database-username');

define('DB_PASSWORD', 'database-password');

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

Sometimes it helps to insert your IP number under the ‘localhost’. If all data is all right, but the database error is still a problem, keep digging.

3. Check the MySQL server

The reason for a database error may be that a PHP code cannot connect to MySQL to read out the information needed to fully build the page. To check the problem on your own:

• Go to phpMyAdmin.

• Create a new file called testconnection.php.

• Paste there the following code making sure all data is correct:

<?php

$link = mysql_connect('localhost', 'root', 'password');

if (!$link) {

die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());

}

echo 'Connected successfully';

mysql_close($link);

?>

If you cannot connect to the server, you can assume that it is MySQL posing a problem. Possibly, the user does not have a sufficient permission. At this point, you should contact your host to ask for fixing it.