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Are you seeing the ‘Error establishing a database connection’ notice on your WordPress website? It is a fatal error that makes your WordPress website inaccessible to the users.
This error occurs when WordPress is unable to make a connection to the database. A number of things can affect your WordPress database connection which makes it a bit difficult for beginners to troubleshoot.
In this article, we will show you how to easily fix the error establishing a database connection in WordPress.
The ‘Error establishing a database connection’ issue can be caused by incorrect database information in your WordPress settings, corrupt database, or an irresponsive database server.
A database is a software which makes it easy to store, organize, and retrieve data into other software.
This information is stored in your WordPress configuration file called wp-config.php.
If any of these items are incorrect, WordPress would fail to connect to your database server, and you’ll see the ‘Error establishing a database connection’ error.
It is one of the most common WordPress errors. Apart from incorrect credentials, this error can also appear if the database server is down, or the database files are corrupt.
Let’s take a look at how to fix error establishing database connection issue in WordPress with step by step troubleshooting.
1. Check Your WordPress Database Credentials
The most common reason for database connection error in WordPress is incorrect database credentials. If you have recently moved your WordPress site to a new host, then this could be the most likely reason.
Your WordPress database credentials are stored in the wp-config.php file. It is the WordPress configuration file that contains important WordPress settings including database information.
You’ll be looking for the following lines in the wp-config.php file.
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// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** ///** The name of the database for WordPress */define( 'DB_NAME', 'database_name_here' );/** MySQL database username */define( 'DB_USER', 'username_here' );/** MySQL database password */define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here' );/** MySQL hostname */define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' ); |
You need to make sure that the information for the database name, username, password, and database host is correct.
You can confirm this information from your WordPress hosting account dashboard. Simply log in to your hosting account and click on MySQL databases under the database section.
Once you have confirmed your database name, username, and password, you can change that information in your wp-config.php file if needed.
After that, try visiting your website again to see if the database connection error has gone.
If you can still see the error, then this means that something else is wrong. Continue reading for more troubleshooting steps.
2. Check Your Database Host Information
If you are confident that your database name, username, and password information is correct, then you may want to make sure that you are using the correct database host information.
Most WordPress hosting companies use localhost as your database host. However, some managed WordPress hosting companies use separate servers to host databases. In that case, your database host information will not be localhost.
You need to contact your WordPress hosting company to confirm your database host information.
3. Repair WordPress Database
If you are getting a different error on the wp-admin, for instance, something like “One or more database tables are unavailable. The database may need to be repaired”, then you need to repair your database.
You can do this by adding the following line in your wp-config.php file. Make sure to add it just before ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging’ line wp-config.php.
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define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true); |
Once you have done that, you can see the settings by visiting this page: http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php
4. Rebooting Web Server
Users on dedicated servers, local servers, and virtual private servers (VPS) can try rebooting their servers.
This will restart your web and database server which may fix some temporary glitches causing the error.
5. Ask for help
If everything else fails, then you may need to contact your web hosting company. All good WordPress hosting companies will help you troubleshoot the problem, point you in the right direction, or even fix it for you.
We hope this article helped you fix the error establishing a database connection in WordPress.
