Title: Error establishing a database connection
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# Error establishing a database connection

 *  [suzannewozniak](https://wordpress.org/support/users/suzannewozniak/)
 * (@suzannewozniak)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-establishing-a-database-connection-641/)
 * Hi,
 * Don’t know if anyone can help me I am a complete novis at this but I have followed
   everything I should be doing but I got the following when i typed into my browser
   localhost:8888/wp-admin/install.php
 * Error establishing a database connection
    This either means that the username
   and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or we can’t 
   contact the database server at localhost. This could mean your host’s database
   server is down.
 * Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
    Are you sure that you
   have typed the correct hostname? Are you sure that the database server is running?
   If you’re unsure what these terms mean you should probably contact your host.
   If you still need help you can always visit the WordPress Support Forums.
 * Can anyone please help me?
 * Cheers

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/)
 * (@t-p)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-establishing-a-database-connection-641/#post-5739620)
 * Error connecting to your database:
 * In nutshell, you’re getting this error because WP is unable to establish a database
   connection. Reason why WP is unable to establish a database connection can vary.
   It could be that your database login credentials are wrong or have been changed.
   It could be that your database server is unresponsive. It could be that your 
   database has been corrupted. Majority of the times this error happens because
   of some sort of server error. Also, there could be other factors as well. To 
   troubleshooting this problem:
    – double check your [wp-config.php file settings ](http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php)
   for the database name, database username and database password, and the host 
   name (e.g., “localhost” Vs. something else). This is where most errors occur.–
   Then make sure wp-config.php is in right location. – Then check that you don’t
   need to change the database host from “localhost” to something else. You can 
   get that info from your hosting provider. – Check you have actually created a
   database with the same database name as is in your wp-config.php file. – Last,
   but not least, if all that information is correct your database probably has 
   a problem with it. Contact your hosting provider if the database server is offline(
   if the problem suddenly happened), or if they have any other problem at their
   end, or they made any changes to your account, or if there are any limitations/
   restrictions, or if the hosting package is set to Windows and not Linux, etc.–
   If the error is intermittent then it’s not your site – it’s your server. What’s
   happening is that the web server and/or the database server are gettign overloaded
   and the connection is droping out or is refused for a short time. That gives 
   you the database error as the website can’t connect to the database. To fix this,
   you’ll need to talk to your hosting company as they are the only ones that can
   do anything about hardware issues like this. – There are also many threads on
   this topic on these forums: [http://wordpress.org/search/Error+establishing+a+database+connection?forums=1](http://wordpress.org/search/Error+establishing+a+database+connection?forums=1)
 *  [LyleChamney](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lylechamney/)
 * (@lylechamney)
 * [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-establishing-a-database-connection-641/#post-5739649)
 * > localhost:8888
 * Looks as though you are running MAMP on a Mac. If so, did you:
 * – select phpMyAdmin from the MAMP start page ‘Tools’ menu to create a new, empty
   database using a name with no spaces in it?
    – did you place all the WordPress
   files and folders from the extracted WP download package into Applications/MAMP/
   htdocs?
 * If you did the above, you would start the install with:
 * `http://localhost:8888` … that’s it 🙂

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Error establishing a database connection’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Installing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/installation/)
 * 2 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [LyleChamney](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lylechamney/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-establishing-a-database-connection-641/#post-5739649)
 * Status: not resolved

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