[php] MySQL connection not working: 2002 No such file or directory

I'm trying to set up WordPress. I have Apache and MySQL running, and the accounts and database are all set up. I tried to make a simple connection:

<?php
    $conn = mysql_connect('localhost', 'USER', 'PASSWORD');
    if(!$conn) {
        echo 'Error: ' . mysql_errno() . ' - ' . mysql_error();
    }
?>

And I always get this:

Error: 2002 - No such file or directory

What file or directory could it be talking about?

I'm on a OS X Snow Leopard, using the built-in Apache. I installed MySQL using the x86_64 dmg.

UPDATE: I found that the socket is at /tmp/mysql.sock, so In php.ini, I replaced all occurrences of the wrong path with that.

This is for Mac OS X with the native installation of Apache HTTP and custom installation of MySQL.

The answer is based on @alec-gorge's excellent response, but since I had to google some specific changes to have it configured in my configuration, mostly Mac OS X-specific, I thought I'd add it here for the sake of completeness.

Enable PHP5 support for Apache HTTP

Make sure the PHP5 support is enabled in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf.

Edit the file with sudo vi /etc/apache2/httpd.conf (enter the password when asked) and uncomment (remove ; from the beginning of) the line to load the php5_module module.

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Start Apache HTTP with sudo apachectl start (or restart if it's already started and needs to be restarted to re-read the configuration file).

Make sure that /var/log/apache2/error_log contains a line that tells you the php5_module is enabled - you should see PHP/5.3.15 (or similar).

[notice] Apache/2.2.22 (Unix) DAV/2 PHP/5.3.15 with Suhosin-Patch configured -- resuming normal operations

Looking up Socket file's name

When MySQL is up and running (with ./bin/mysqld_safe) there should be debug lines printed out to the console that tell you where you can find the log files. Note the hostname in the file name - localhost in my case - that may be different for your configuration.

The file that comes after Logging to is important. That's where MySQL logs its work.

130309 12:17:59 mysqld_safe Logging to '/Users/jacek/apps/mysql/data/localhost.err'.
130309 12:17:59 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /Users/jacek/apps/mysql/data

Open the localhost.err file (again, yours might be named differently), i.e. tail -1 /Users/jacek/apps/mysql/data/localhost.err to find out the socket file's name - it should be the last line.

$ tail -1 /Users/jacek/apps/mysql/data/localhost.err
Version: '5.5.27'  socket: '/tmp/mysql.sock'  port: 3306  MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Note the socket: part - that's the socket file you should use in php.ini.

There's another way (some say an easier way) to determine the location of the socket's file name by logging in to MySQL and running:

show variables like '%socket%';

Configuring PHP5 with MySQL support - /etc/php.ini

Speaking of php.ini...

In /etc directory there's /etc/php.ini.default file. Copy it to /etc/php.ini.

sudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini

Open /etc/php.ini and look for mysql.default_socket.

sudo vi /etc/php.ini

The default of mysql.default_socket is /var/mysql/mysql.sock. You should change it to the value you have noted earlier - it was /tmp/mysql.sock in my case.

Replace the /etc/php.ini file to reflect the socket file's name:

mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

Final verification

Restart Apache HTTP.

sudo apachectl restart 

Check the logs if there are no error related to PHP5. No errors means you're done and PHP5 with MySQL should work fine. Congrats!

May be I am late to answer this, but what solved my problem was to install the mysql-server

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

after spending more than 5 hours I found this solution which helped me to proceed. I hope this would help someone if the top answers won't help them

Replacing 'localhost' to '127.0.0.1' in config file (db connection) helped!

in my case I have problem with mysqli_connect.
when I want to connect
mysqli_connect('localhost', 'myuser','mypassword')
mysqli_connect_error() return me this error "No such file or directory"

this worked for me mysqli_connect('localhost:3306', 'myuser','mypassword')

First check MySQL server is running or not. if running then check socket path by login to MySQL through command line.

mysql -uUSER -pPASSWORD

then

show variables like 'socket';

You'll find path of mysql socket which you can use further in connection string like below:

$conn = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'USER', 'PASSWORD', 'path of socket file');

If MySQL is not running. Then Please share error logs which you are getting to troubleshoot further.

Im using PHP-FPM or multiple php version in my server. On my case i update mysqli value since there is not mysql default socket parameter :

mysqli.default_socket

to :

mysql.default_socket = /path/to/mysql.sock

thanks to @Alec Gorge

The error 2002 means that MySQL can't connect to local database server through the socket file (e.g. /tmp/mysql.sock).

To find out where is your socket file, run:

mysql_config --socket

then double check that your application uses the right Unix socket file or connect through the TCP/IP port instead.

Then double check if your PHP has the right MySQL socket set-up:

php -i | grep mysql.default_socket

and make sure that file exists.

Test the socket:

mysql --socket=/var/mysql/mysql.sock

If the Unix socket is wrong or does not exist, you may symlink it, for example:

ln -vs /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

or correct your configuration file (e.g. php.ini).

To test the PDO connection directly from PHP, you may run:

php -r "new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;port=3306;charset=utf8;dbname=dbname', 'root', 'root');"

Check also the configuration between Apache and CLI (command-line interface), as the configuration can be differ.

It might be that the server is running, but you are trying to connect using a TCP/IP port, named pipe, or Unix socket file different from the one on which the server is listening. To correct that you need to invoke a client program (e.g. specifying --port option) to indicate the proper port number, or the proper named pipe or Unix socket file (e.g. --socket option).

See: Troubleshooting Problems Connecting to MySQL

Other utils/commands which can help to track the problem:

• mysql --socket=$(php -r 'echo ini_get("mysql.default_socket");')
• netstat -ln | grep mysql
• php -r "phpinfo();" | grep mysql
• php -i | grep mysql
• Use XDebug with xdebug.show_exception_trace=1 in your xdebug.ini
• On OS X try sudo dtruss -fn mysqld, on Linux debug with strace
• Check permissions on Unix socket: stat $(mysql_config --socket) and if you've enough free space (df -h).
• Restart your MySQL.
• Check net.core.somaxconn.

Not that it helps you much, but in the recent versions (and even less recent) of MySQL, error code 2002 means “Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket [name-of-socket]”, so that might tell you a bit more.

On a Mac, before doing all the hard work, simply check your settings in System Preferences > MySQL. More often than not, I've experienced the team running into this problem since The MySQL Server Instance is stopped.

Click the Start MySQL Server button, and magic will happen.

I'd check your php.ini file and verify the mysql.default_socket is set correctly and also verify that your mysqld is correctly configured with a socket file it can access. Typical default is "/tmp/mysql.sock".

enable and start mariadb service

sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

sudo systemctl start mariadb.service

Restarting the mysql server might help. In my case, restarting the server saved a lot of time.

service mysql restart

P.S.- use sudo service mysql restart for non-root user.

First, ensure MySQL is running. Command: mysqld start

If you still cannot connect then: What does your /etc/my.cnf look like? (or /etc/msyql/my.cnf)

The other 2 posts are correct in that you need to check your socket because 2002 is a socket error.

A great tutorial on setting up LAMP is: http://library.linode.com/lamp-guides/centos-5.3/index-print

I had a similar problem.
Basically here the problem is there are probably two instances of mysql running.
A) One running at /etc/init.d
B) Lamp being installed at /opt/lamp
Solution :
Step 1 :- Find all mysql running instances using commnad "find / | grep mysqld"
Step 2 :- Shutdown the services running at /etc/init.d using service mysql stop
Step 3 :- Restart your Lamp services using /opt/lamp/lamp restart

You should be good to go :)

I encountered this problem too, then i modified 'localhost' to '127.0.0.1',it works.

Make sure your local server (MAMP, XAMPP, WAMP, etc..) is running.

I had a similar problem and was able to solve it by addressing my mysql with 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost.

This probably means I've got something wrong in my hosts setup, but this quick fix get's me going for right now.

I had the same problem. My socket was eventually found in /tmp/mysql.sock. Then I added that path to php.ini. I found the socket there from checking the page "Server Status" in MySQL Workbench. If your socket isn't in /tmp/mysql.sock then maybe MySQL Workbench could tell you where it is? (Granted you use MySQL Workbench...)

I've installed MySQL using installer. In fact, there was no data directory alongside 'bin' directory.

So, I manually created the 'data' directory under "C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0". And it worked (changing the root password following steps suggested on https://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-windows-excerpt/5.7/en/resetting-permissions-windows.html.

Digital Ocean MySql 2002-no-such-file-or-directory

Add this end of file /etc/mysql/my.cnf

[mysqld]
innodb_force_recovery = 1

Restart MySql

service mysql restart

Expanding on Matthias D's answer here I was able to resolve this 2002 error on both MySQL and MariaDB with exact paths using these commands:

First get the actual path to the MySQL socket:

netstat -ln | grep -o -m 1 '/.*mysql.sock'

Then get the PHP path:

php -r 'echo ini_get("mysql.default_socket") . "\n";'

Using the output of these two commands, link them up:

sudo ln -s /actualpath/mysql.sock /phppath/mysql.sock

If that returns No such file or directory you just need to create the path to the PHP mysql.sock, for example if your path was /var/mysql/mysql.sock you would run:

sudo mkdir -p /var/mysql

Then try the sudo ln command again.