Question

[Updated below]

I am having a problem connecting to a MySQL database using a Bitnami LAMP stack. This is the code I used to connect on the shared-hosting server where I originally hosted the database:

DEFINE ('DB_USER', 'username');
DEFINE ('DB_PASSWORD', 'password');
DEFINE ('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
DEFINE ('DB_NAME', 'database');

if ($dbc = mysql_connect (DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD)) { // Make the connnection.

    if (!mysql_select_db (DB_NAME)) { // If it can't select the database.

        // Handle the error.
        trigger_error("Could not select the database!\n<br />MySQL Error: " . mysql_error());

        exit();

    } // End of mysql_select_db IF.

} else { // If it couldn't connect to MySQL.

    trigger_error("Could not connect to MySQL!\n<br />MySQL Error: " . mysql_error());
    exit();

} // End of $dbc IF.

Running this on my Bitnami server, I get no response (not even an error message). (PHP is working fine.)

I then tried

<?php
$link = mysql_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password');
if (!$link) {
    die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}
echo 'Connected successfully';
mysql_close($link);
?>

and got

Could not connect: Access denied for user 'username'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

this username/password combination definitely exists and (as far as I can tell) has access to the database in question. I am wondering what I am doing wrong and why the original script does not produce an error (or connect).

Update:

I followed Michael’s suggestion below, and was able to connect. I wanted to reproduce the issue so I deleted that user then created a user testuser via

CREATE USER 'testuser'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY  '***';

GRANT SELECT , 
INSERT ,

UPDATE ,
DELETE ,
FILE ON * . * TO  'testuser'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY  '***' WITH MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_UPDATES_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_USER_CONNECTIONS 0 ;

Then following Michael’s suggestion, I executed

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test . * TO testuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY  'password'

but again I am getting

Could not connect: Access denied for user 'testuser'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

(This doesn’t work whether I use ‘%’ or ‘localhost’)

this is what the privileges look like for testuser in phpmyadmin

Database    Privileges  Grant   Table-specific privileges
test     ALL PRIVILEGES No  No   Edit Privileges

Answer 1

The error message received is clear – the user you’re connecting with does not have access via the password you are using. You’ll need to grant privileges accordingly:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES on dbname.* to username@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'thepassword';