Database error

araney
(@araney)

13 years, 10 months ago

I’ve been having problems with my WP database for weeks now. I’ve finally got nearly everything ironed out, except my site is still not functional. When I put in my wp-admin url, I get:

We were able to connect to the database server (which means your username and password is okay) but not able to select the ((username)_WordPress database.

* Are you sure it exists?
* Does the user (username) have permission to use the (username)_WordPress database?
* On some systems the name of your database is prefixed with your username, so it would be like username_ (username)_WordPress. Could that be the problem?

(and obviously filled in “username” once I pasted the error message here…)

Anyway, I have tried all three troubleshooting possibilities listed above, but to no avail.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

Samuel B
(@samboll)

13 years, 10 months ago

so log into host’s phpmyadmin and verify the database name exactly

Thread Starter araney
(@araney)

13 years, 10 months ago

That’s actually where I got the user name and database name, which I plugged into the appropriate fields in the wp-config.php file.

Thread Starter araney
(@araney)

13 years, 10 months ago

Is it possible that this is an issue with my host, rather than the WP files in my database?

mrmist
(@mrmist)

13 years, 10 months ago

It’s possible, but it’s more likely that there’s slight problem with the entries in your config file. (Especially for this particular error)

It’ll be the database name part that is wrong. You need to either add your username as a prefix, or remove it if it’s already there.

So if your database name field in wp_config is currently

username_databasename
change it to
databasename

And vice-versa.

Thread Starter araney
(@araney)

13 years, 10 months ago

Thanks for the reply.

I have tried both of those ways of listing the database name.

“We were able to connect to the database server (which means your username and password is okay) but not able to select the WordPress database.”

I’m at a loss, and am unsure of what the next possible solution could be.

thisisedie
(@thisisedie)

13 years, 10 months ago

not able to select the WordPress database

Means the database name is wrong in config. Log in to your cpanel and go to databases and find out the exact name of the database.

maoski
(@maoski)

13 years, 10 months ago

sometimes hosts will automatically add extra unique characters to database names aswell

Mark Ratledge
(@songdogtech)

13 years, 10 months ago

Some installs of phpmyadmin will also show databases that are for configuration or otherwise not for wordpress specifically and you may have grabbed the name of the wrong DB. And, who is your host?

Thread Starter araney
(@araney)

13 years, 10 months ago

Interesting…

My host is 3ix.

To give you a little back story:

My WP blog disappeared entirely. After some investigation, we found that my WP database wasn’t THERE anymore. I communicated with my host’s support using live chat, told them the db was no longer listed in my cpanel, the support tech said “hold on a sec”, et voila! My db was back. Since then, though, I have had no luck getting my blog back. I’ve tried various combinations of db names, usernames, etc, with no luck.

I’ll try all that again though and see if I have any luck!

Mark Ratledge
(@songdogtech)

13 years, 10 months ago

Might be that they restored your database but it might not have the same name. Check in phpmyadmin again and in the left hand pane, click on what looks like a wordpress database and see what tables are in it. Hopefully there are tables in it….