Error establishing a database connection error in wordpress [SOLVED]
Understanding the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress
Before we dig too much into this particular error message, let’s have a brief lesson on how WordPress sites work. Nearly all website information — including post data, plugin settings, login credentials, and more — is stored and organized in a MySQL database.
When a visitor comes to your site, WordPress uses PHP to query the database and pull the correct information, which is then displayed as the complete page.
If, for whatever reason, WordPress can’t access your site’s database or it isn’t working properly, the result is an Error Establishing a Database Connection message.
This error prevents the entire page from loading. In fact, you won’t even be able to access the WordPress dashboard (your site’s back end).
If your site uses caching, visitors may still see stored copies of your pages. Therefore, if you catch the error early and resolve the problem before your site’s cache refreshes, you can avoid too many interruptions to your site and business.
Fortunately, as WordPress errors go, a database connection error is usually pretty simple to resolve. The most common cause, by far, is just a mismatch of login credentials for the database.
Common Causes of the Error Establishing a Database Connection
There are four typical causes of the database connection error:
- Incorrect database login credentials. Possibly the most common cause of the Error Establishing a Database Connection is simply that WordPress has incorrect login credentials for your database. This could be either the database name, username, or password. Remember, these login details are different from the ones you use to access your site.
- Database corruption. A WordPress MySQL database contains a lot of information. If any part is deleted or corrupted, the result can be the error in question. Corruption can result from manually tinkering with the database, but it can also just happen as a consequence of normal use. Although MySQL is quite robust, nothing is perfect, and errors do occur.
- WordPress core file corruption. Similarly, corruption can occur in the core WordPress files that make up your site. Even though these files are outside the database, they may sometimes result in the same error.
- Problems with the web server or hosting provider. If problems arise with your host or server (if you’re self-hosting) and WordPress can’t reach it to query the database, it will throw this error. These problems can include outages, data loss, and hardware failures.
As we said, incorrect credentials are the most common cause of the error, but any of these could be the culprit. For that reason, fixing the error can involve some troubleshooting.
How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress (In 4 Steps)
Although this is a serious error, it’s fortunately fairly easy to resolve. Below, you’ll find step-by-step instructions for troubleshooting and fixing the problem. Note that you should try each step in order, only moving to the next if one doesn’t work.
Step 1: Check Your WordPress Database Credentials
Since this is the most likely cause of the error, it should also be the first step in your troubleshooting. The first thing you’ll need to do is locate the credentials WordPress is currently using to access your database.
This information is stored in your site’s wp-config.php file. You can use a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) client to access it.
Alternatively, if your site is hosted with DreamHost, you can access the file system from the DreamHost Control Panel. To do so, sign in to your control panel and navigate to Domains > Websites. Hover the mouse over the domain you’d like to fix, then click ‘manage’ to see the folder icon. Then click on the file folder symbol next to the site that’s experiencing the error.
Inside the file browser, select the folder named after your website, then open wp-config.php. Here, look for three pieces of information — the database name, username, and password. They should be near the top of the file.
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