Cannot connect to database on install (was: Initial installer doesn't run)

So, I’ve downloaded the .zip, unpacked it, edited the config.php with fitting credentials (yes, I have created a database and user) uploaded the “lists”-folder and navigated my browser to [my domain]/lists/admin. All I’m seeing is this: http://i.imgur.com/3OUZgd2.png

Anyone?

Does using another browser make a difference?

If not, can you post your config php with passwords obscured. Use the </> code tag.

Usually when I see that screen, it means that the there is some kind of typographic error in the config.php file.

Hmmm, that’s what I figured, but enabling error reporting (“error_reporting(E_ALL);”) doesn’t print anything to the page…

No, changing the browser does not work, clearing the cache doesn’t either.

you might want to either look over the config.php file and make sure everything looks ok (I’ve found errors related to commented lines, missing “$”, etc.)

Or, you can copy a clean config.php file to the config directory, and see if anything changes.

Using a stock config-php file yields this error:

“Cannot connect to database, access denied. Please check your configuration or contact the administrator.”

Which makes perfect sense since the credentials doesn’t match. The only lines I alter are the following:

# what is your Mysql database server hostname
$database_host = "localhost";

# what is the name of the database we are using
$database_name = "phplist";

# what user has access to this database
$database_user = "phplist";

# and what is the password to login to control the database
$database_password = "1234";

Did you guess this or are you sure?

I am sure. I have even removed the user and recreated it with different credentials.

Given that you are now getting a page, you’ll need to enter the following for your database…

the location … most likely 'localhost’
the databasename:
the username:
the user password:

once those are correctly answered, you should at least get more on that page…

In order to make it easy for myself, the above is actually the credentials.

If that’s the case, the error you are getting is the system saying that it cannot connect to the database, it’s either on another machine, it hasn’t been setup yet, or one of the credentials are wrong

Keep us posted :smile:

So, it turns out that PHP’s display_errors directive was set to off.

I thought that might have been the problem, the page is still blank. Infuriating.

Hi.
I have similar problem. When I try test script for conetd to database:

    <?php
    mysql_connect(':/tmp/mariadb55.sock', 'db_user', 'db_pass') or die('Could not
    connect the database : Username or password incorrect');
    mysql_select_db('db_name') or die ('No database found');
    echo 'Database Connected successfully';
    ?>

it works, but when I use the same value in config.php it says:

Cannot connect to database, Sql server is not running. Please check your configuration or contact the administrator.

what is wrong?
Thank you

phpList is looking for a hostname, i.e. ‘localhost’ or the ip address or the fqdn.

it appears you are using a socket on the localhost. I’d suggest that phpList needs an explicit mention of localhost… can you try that?

here is an example of what works on my machine:

# what is your Mysql database server
$database_host = "192.168.0.29";

the variable ‘database_host’ is used by the software to talk to the database.

I think it might be the way you have the $database_user entered.
Most of the time the user would be something like “something_phplist”.

You should be able to login to the website control panel and check the database names and users.

Maybe not your case… but this may happen when using the old mysql password. So, indeed…devs, you should better catch this specific case and alert the user… thanks