Can’t install – like many others

FreeBSD 8 RELEASE
wordpress: 2.9.2
php5-5.2.11 PHP Scripting Language
php5-mysql-5.2.11 The mysql shared extension for php
mysql-client-5.0.86 Multithreaded SQL database (client)
mysql-server-5.0.86 Multithreaded SQL database (server)
apache-2.2.13 Version 2.2.x of Apache web server with prefork MPM.

So, I’ve had a blog setup on a different host for a while and it’s working great. I am moving it to a new host and now I’m having some issues. This isn’t my first WP install on a bsd machine (I test locally).

>> The problem I’m having is
Error establishing a database connection
#1 My database, username, password and hostname are correct.
#2 Yes, they’re been checked and they’re still correct.
#3 Yes, I’ve created additional users, db’s and changed their permissions
#4 Yes, all servers are running and I’ve made changes from console to mysql.

So in looking through the help I’ve tried a LOT of things. Eventually I even got it working, don’t know how. But I decided to string together what I did (since I’ve been taking notes). So on step 1, everything goes FOBAR and I haven’t been able to get it working again. So I’m asking help.

A LOT of people are having this problem right now. So here’s what some of my logs say:

[Sat Mar 13 22:45:40 2010] [error] [client 192.168.1.66] PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function preg_match() in /usr/local/www/apache22/website/blog/wp-settings.php on line 64

[Sat Mar 13 22:58:41 2010] [error] [client 192.168.1.66] PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function preg_replace() in /usr/local/www/apache22/website/blog/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1130

I’ve gone in and commented those out but it just goes on and on. I saw someone mention that on the wp-config-sample.php it was missing the ?> at the end… but that didn’t work for me either after adding it. I’ve used both methods (wp-config.php and just website/blog/) and both get stuck with not being able to connect to DB.

Interestingly enough, after I even updated some things (PHP) it now broke my sites layout! So I’ll have to see whats up with that later.

[Sat Mar 13 23:33:28 2010] [error] [client 192.168.1.66] PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant home - assumed 'home' in /usr/local/www/apache22/website/index.php on line 2

So, any one have an idea? Maybe it’s just a bad batch of setup files?

In mysql: running mysql> SELECT host, user, password from mysql.user;
returns the correct host, user and passwd’d entry.

Thanks!