This was originally posted in the EE Core forum, but I have since purchased a personal license and encountered the same problems.
original post from EE Core Forum

Okay, I’ve done some pretty extensive reading in the forums without luck fixing this problem. On install I am getting the following errors:

  1. Unable to connect to your database server.
  2. Unable to select the database

I am installing an instance of EE. I am installing 1.6.4 onto the localhost on my HD as a testing environment, so I don’t have a hosting provider to call to check my server settings. Here are the basics of my system:

Mac OS 10.5
MySQL 5.0.45
PHP 5.2.5
Apache 2.0
EE Core 1.6.4

Please note I am currently running an instance of Wordpress on my localhost without error.

I filled out the dbtest.php and received the following response:

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/mysql/mysql.sock’ (2) in /Library/WebServer/Documents/ee/ebauche/utilities/dbtest.php on line 12

Unable to connect to your database server

Warning: mysql_select_db() [function.mysql-select-db]: Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/mysql/mysql.sock’ (2) in /Library/WebServer/Documents/ee/ebauche/utilities/dbtest.php on line 28

Warning: mysql_select_db() [function.mysql-select-db]: A link to the server could not be established in /Library/WebServer/Documents/ee/ebauche/utilities/dbtest.php on line 28
Unable to select your database

I have checked and double checked my usernames and passwords without change.
ensured there were no “$” in my passwords
changed databases just in case there was some kind of corruption

What can I try next to get up and running? Thank you for any help you can provide.

secondlamppost - 20 July 2008 03:17 PM

1. Unable to connect to your database server.
2. Unable to select the database

There are issues with your server. Do you have phpMyAdmin installed? Can you access the db fine? It’s almost certainly a server configuration issue. See if this thread is any help.

I have checked and double checked my usernames and passwords without change.

Also check the host and database name.

Thanks Ingmar, I have phpMyAdmin installed and running smoothly because that is how I maintain my Wordpress testing environment. I’ll take a look at the post you suggested tonight and see if that solves my problem.

Okay, I have gone over Ingmar’s suggested post but no change. Most of the changes suggested in that post seem to already be present on my machine. Unfortunately server side languages are my achilles heel (one of the many reasons I found EE so attractive).

Here’s a quick background on my problem. PHP and MySQL have to be communicating at least with some databases because I am running a Wordpress database on my localhost without error. On initial install of Wordpress it took me over a week to get things running and only got fixed when I hired a MySQL DBA to remote in to fix my connections issues. (The whole process was very easy on my old Mac Powerbook G4 running OS 10.4, but proved to be quite difficult on my new Mac Book Pro running 10.5.) I used the local testing server setup instructions from the books of David Powers.

I ran the server setup wizard to test my compatibility. Attached you will find the response as picture 1.png. I get the error:

can’t connect to local mysql server through socket /var/mysql/mysql.sock

I am attaching a screen grab of that as well.

The screengrab of my php info file is too big to attach. You can find it here.

Any help on how I can get up and running with Expression Engine would be greatly appreciated.

Not my strong point either- but see if this looks helpful.  Why it would be working w/wp and not EE I’m not sure.  But it’s definitely server setup in play.

Thanks for the resource Robin. It didn’t work for me, but I just noticed something while trying it out. The error from wizard.php says:

Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/mysql/mysql.sock’

But when I browse the hidden files on my HD with BBEdit I can’t find a sub-folder in “var” named “mysql”. I find my “mysql.sock” file in “tmp/mysql.sock”. Is is safe to create a new folder and relocate this file, or is there a way to point EE to the correct mysql.sock location?

Thanks

Hi, Brian,

Unfortunately, setting up your server is beyond what we can offer as technical support for ExpressionEngine.  I would highly recommend using a professional hosting account for this, so that they can help you with any troubleshooting on PHP and MySQL connections.