#wordpress database connection errors

Do you see the ‘Error establishing a database connection’ error on your WordPress site? It is a one of the most common errors of WordPress that makes your website inaccessible to the users.

This error also occurs when your WordPress site is unable to make a connection to the database. A plethora of things can affect your WordPress based database connection which makes it a tad difficult for beginners to troubleshoot.

In this blog post, we will explain to you how to simply fix the error establishing a database connection in your WordPress site.

What Causes is Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress?

A "Error establishing database connection" problem can happen due to incorrect database information in WordPress settings, unresponsive database server or damaged database.

A database is a program that makes it easy to organize, store, and retrieve data in other programs. As a content management system, WordPress uses a database to store all of your content and other website data. Then it connects to the database every time someone visits your website.

WordPress requires the following information so as to connect to the database:

·        Database name

·        Database username

·        Database password

·        Database server

This data is stored in the WordPress configuration file called wp-config.php.

If any of these details are incorrect, WordPress may fail to connect to the database server, and you will see an "Error creating database connection" error.

It is one of the most common WordPress errors. Apart from incorrect credentials, this error can appear if the database server is down, or complete database files are corrupted.

Let's take a look at how to fix this WordPress error in creating a database connection problem with step-by-step troubleshooting.

1. Check Your WordPress Database Credentials

The most common cause of a WordPress database connection error is incorrect database credentials. If you have recently moved your WordPress site to a new host, this could be a possible reason.

WordPress database login credentials are stored in wp-config.php. This is a WordPress configuration file that contains important WordPress settings, including database information. If you haven't edited wp-config.php before, read WordPress for instructions on editing wp-config.php. The following lines are found in the wp-config.php file.

You need to ensure that the database name, password, username, and database host information are accurate. You can also verify this data in your WordPress hosting account dashboard. In addition to this, simply login to your hosting account and click MySQL Databases under Database.

This will also take you to the Database Administration page of your hosting dashboard. From here, you can easily find out the name and username of your WP website database.

Below mentioned is a list of database users and links to change your user password. Once you have confirmed the user name, database name, and password, you can change this information in the wp-config.php file if necessary. Then try visiting your site again to see if there is a database connection error. If the error persists, something else is wrong. Read the following troubleshooting steps.

2. Check Your Database Host Information

If you are sure that the user name, database name, and password are correct, you must make sure that you are using the correct database host information.

Most WordPress localhost hosting providers use their database. However, some managed WordPress hosting companies use dedicated servers to store their databases. In this case, the database host information will not be localhost.

Contact your WordPress hosting provider to confirm your database host information.

3. Repair WordPress Database

For example, if you encounter another error in wp-admin, for example: "One or more database tables are not available. You may need to repair the database," then repair the database.

To do this, add the following line to the wp-config.php file. Don't forget to add "This is before editing is complete"! Happy Blog "line wp-config.php.

1 define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);

Once you do this, you can see your settings by visiting this page:http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php

Note: The user does not need to log in to access the Database Repair page. Make sure to remove this code from the wp-config.php file after you've finished repairing and improving the database.

Check if Your Database Server is Down

If everything looks fine and WordPress is still unable to connect to the database, the database server (MySQL Server) is down.

This could be due to increased server traffic. Fundamentally, the host server simply cannot manage the load (especially if it is on shared storage).

Your WordPress site will be really slow, and you may even see the error for some users. So one of the best things to do is pick up your mobile phone or chat live with your hosting provider and ask them if your MySQL server is responding.

If other websites run on the same server, you can check these sites to confirm the SQL server. If there is no other site in the same hosting account, just go to the hosting dashboard, try to access phpMyAdmin and link the database.

If you can connect, we need to verify that the database user is correctly authorized. Create a new test.php file and then you can paste the following code:

Change your username and password. Now, you can upload this file to your site and access it through a browser. If the given script is successfully connected, it means that the user has sufficient permissions and something else is wrong.

Check the wp-config file in order to make sure everything is correct (check your spelling errors again).

Some Other Solutions That Have Worked for the WordPress Users

If the above WordPress database troubleshooting tips cannot resolve the database connection error on your site, you can try these additional steps. Our users have reported that these steps have helped some users resolve the database connection error on the site.

1. Update WordPress Site URL

Try updating your WordPress URL using phpMyAdmin. You can simply access phpMyAdmin from your hosting account dashboard and also define your WordPress database.

Then click on the SQL menu at the top and enter the following MySQL query.

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value='YOUR_SITE_URL' WHERE option_name='siteurl'

Don’t forget to provide your own site URL and change wp_options to your own table name as you may have changed the WordPress table prefix.

2. Rebooting Web Server

A dedicated server, local server, and virtual private server (VPS) users can try to restart their servers. This will restart the webserver and database, which may correct certain temporary errors that cause the error

3. You can Also Ask for help

If all else fails, you may need to contact your web hosting provider. Any good WordPress hosting provider will help you troubleshoot, guide you in the right direction, or even fix it for you.

Besides, you can hire WordPress developers who can help fix the problem at a reasonable cost. Best of all, these developers are heavily audited by the Codeable team, so you know they are reliable.

We hope this blog post helps you to correct the error when establishing a database connection in WordPress. You may want to check out our WordPress troubleshooting guide for tips on how to solve WordPress problems.

For more information and wordpress troubleshooting assistance call us @888-606-1808 (toll-free) and consult with our wordpress developers or experts.