Even after 3 or more successful install of wordpress in multisite mode I still cannot get my head around the process or why it's so finicky. Basically, I have ssh and sudo access to my server so I do everything on the command line (no faffing with cpanel and the like).
I create the mysql database in the normal way with
mysql> CREATE DATABASE testbp DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
and add the database user. I then install the latest 3.2.1 code into the appropriate dir usr/local/www/apache22/data/test-bp and reconfigure the Apache VHOST to point to here. Now I start up the WP site and create an administrator account with password. Now I log out.
Next I want to convert this to a multisite (folders) setup, so to wp-config.php I add:
define( 'MULTISITE', true );
define( 'SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', false );
$base = '/';
define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'quake.sergius.earlham.edu' );
define( 'PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/' );
define( 'SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );
define( 'BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );
And also I configure the appropriate .htaccess.
As far as I can see I have done things in a perfectly logical way and yet when I open up the URL I get:
Error establishing database connection
Editing the wp-config.php and changing define( 'MULTISITE', true ); to false allows me to login.
So I'm in a catch-22 situation here. I need a multisite setup and yet the system won't allow me to create one. What is going on here and why is this procedure so tricky?