How to Resolve the WordPress Error Establishing a Database Connection
Does your WordPress website display the message “Error establishing a database connection”? Your WordPress website being unavailable to visitors is a deadly blunder.
How to Resolve the WordPress Error Establishing a Database Connection – This error occurs when WordPress is unable to connect to the database. Since many things can affect your WordPress database connection, it might be hard for beginners to figure out what’s wrong.
This post will demonstrate how simple it is to resolve the WordPress database connection problem.
What Are the Reasons for WordPress’ Error Establishing a Database Connection?
A faulty database, an unresponsive database server, or inaccurate database information in your WordPress settings might all be the root of the “Error establishing a database connection” problem.
A database is a piece of software that makes it simple to store, arrange, and access data in other programs.
Since it is a content management system, WordPress utilizes a database to store all of your content and other website data. When someone visits your website, it then establishes a connection with the database.
The following details are required by WordPress in order to connect to the database:
- Database Name
- Database Username
- Database Password
- Database Server
This information is stored in your WordPress configuration file called wp-config.php.
WordPress won’t be able to connect to your database server if any of these settings are off, and you’ll get an “Error establishing a database connection” error.
One of the most frequent WordPress mistakes is this one. This error may be brought on by more than just having the wrong credentials. Both the database server and the database files might be down.
Let’s look at a step-by-step troubleshooting guide for resolving the WordPress error establishing the database connection problem.
1. Validate the credentials for the WordPress database
The most frequent cause of database connection problems in WordPress is incorrect database credentials. The most probable explanation for this might be that you just transferred your WordPress site to a new host.
Your WordPress database credentials are stored in the wp-config.php file. The file that houses key WordPress settings, including database information, is the configuration file for WordPress.
If you have never edited the wp-config.php file before, then take a look at our guide on how to edit the wp-config.php file in WordPress.
You’ll be looking for the following lines in the wp-config.php file.
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// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** ///** The name of the database for WordPress */define( 'DB_NAME', 'database_name_here' );/** MySQL database username */define( 'DB_USER', 'username_here' );/** MySQL database password */define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here' );/** MySQL hostname */define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' ); |
You need to make sure that the database host, username, password, and database details are all correct.
From the dashboard of your WordPress hosting account, you can verify this information. Just log in to your hosting account and choose MySQL databases from the database area.
This will direct you to the hosting dashboard’s database administration page. You may access your database name and username from this page.
The database users and links to modify user passwords may be found below that.
Whenever you have confirmed your database name, username, and secret word, you can change that info in your wp-config.php record if necessary.
Check to check whether the database connection problem still exists after that by accessing your website once again.
If the mistake is still visible, something else is obviously incorrect. For further steps in troubleshooting, keep reading.
2. Check the information about the database host.
If you are sure that your database name, username, and password are correct, you may want to check that you are using the right database host information.
Most companies that host WordPress use localhost as the host for your database. But some companies that manage WordPress use separate servers to host databases. In that case, the host information for your database won’t be localhost.
You need to check with the company that hosts your WordPress site to make sure that your database host information is correct.
3. Fix the database in WordPress
If you’re getting a different error on wp-admin, such as “One or more database tables are not available,” you may need to do something else. The database might need fixing, “Then you should fix your database.”
You can do this by adding the following line to your wp-config.php file. Make sure to put it right before “That’s it, no more changes!” Happy blogging ‘line wp-config.php.
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define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true); |
Once you’ve done that, go to http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php to see the settings.
Note: the user needn’t bother to be signed in to get to the data set fix page. Whenever you are finished fixing and upgrading your data set, remove this code from your wp-config.php.
4. Check whether your database server is down.
If everything seems to be in order but WordPress is still unable to connect to the database, your MySQL server may be down.
A server experiencing high traffic may be the cause of this. In essence, your host server just cannot take the traffic (especially when you are on shared hosting).
Your website will become very sluggish, and it can even generate an error for certain visitors. So, the best thing to do is to call or chat with your hosting company and ask if your MySQL server is working.
You may check the other websites that are hosted on the same server to see whether your SQL server is down.
If you don’t have any other sites on the same account, go to your hosting panel, try to access phpMyAdmin, and connect to the database.
If you are able to connect, we must check the permissions of your database user. Paste the following code into a brand-new file named testconnection.php:
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<?php$link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password');if (!$link) {die('Could not connect: ' . mysqli_error());}echo 'Connected successfully';mysqli_close($link);?> |
Be careful to change the password and username. This file is now available for web browser viewing and uploading to your website.
If the script was able to connect, that suggests your user has the necessary permissions and something else is wrong.
Make sure everything in your wp-config file is right by returning to it (re-scan for typos).
Other Options That Users Have Found Successful
If the troubleshooting steps above didn’t fix the problem with your website’s database connection, you can try these other steps.
According to what our users have reported, these techniques have assisted some users in fixing the database connection problem on their websites.
1. Change the WordPress website URL
Try using phpMyAdmin to modify the WordPress site’s URL. Simply choose your WordPress database from the dashboard of your hosting account.
After that, type the following MySQL query by clicking on the SQL menu at the top.
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UPDATE wp_options SET option_value='YOUR_SITE_URL' WHERE option_name='siteurl' |
If you changed the WordPress table prefix, don’t forget to put in your own site’s URL and replace “wp options” with the name of your own table.
2. Starting the Web Server again
Users of virtual private servers (VPS), local servers, and dedicated servers might attempt to reset their machines.
This will make your web server and database server start up again, which may fix any temporary problems that are causing the error.
3. Seek assistance
You may need to get in touch with your web hosting firm if everything else fails. Any reputable WordPress hosting provider will assist you in identifying the issue, send you on the correct path, or even resolve it for free.
To assist you in resolving this problem, you may also pay WordPress developers.
We hope that this post was helpful to you in Resolving the WordPress Error Establishing a Database Connection.
You may want to check out our tutorial How to Set Up a Subscription Box Service in WordPress
