Error establishing mySQL database connection. Correct user/password? Correct hostname? Database server running? in /public_html/libs/db.php on line 87

I am part of a small Indian Social Bookmarking site which is running on pligg 9.9.0 . Yesterday the site was facing a strange problem.

Error establishing mySQL database connection. Correct user/password? Correct hostname? Database server running? in /public_html/libs/db.php on line 87

I was getting the above mentioned error. I hadn’t touched the site in like ages and still I got that strange error. Searching a bit in google I found this thread http://forums.pligg.com/general-help/12830-datebase-error.html which was of not great help.

I tried re-starting the mySQL server, but nothing worked. The only change I had done was I had changed the password of my cpanel after about 8 months for security reasons.

I started inspecting the pligg files in libs folder to see if anything had changed. None of the files had been touched ! Strange it was !

Since it was DB issue, I opened the dbconnect.php in libs folder. The password there was pointing to the old cpanel password. Now I have no idea whats the corelation between pliggs database password and The sites Cpanel password. I just gave it a shot and changed the password to match the current Cpanels password and the site was up !

Now if pligg developers are making the cpanel password as the default password for the installation, they should also make sure the password is updated everytime the cpanel password is changed 🙂 .

Now this is my assumption and am not sure why this happened and how it worked … May be will take a deeper look into what is happening when I find more time.

Btw, It’s Diwali here in India and time for me to go out and burst some crackers 🙂