This actually happened when I was migrating one of my WordPress websites, and this error happened even before the 404 error which I wrote a few days back. What’s funny with this error is that I did not expect this to happen and maybe, I think I am just lucky enough or for some reason, some sort of divine intervention helped me on this one because there is actually no way of me knowing how I found this.
So what happened is that I tried to migrate my website to its new web host, so on my new web host, I uploaded the wordpress files, created the database and the user, uploaded the wordpress sql database, and everything stated on my tutorial Migrating a WordPress Website, I basically did everything as per manual, and after doing everything based on my tutorial, I really thought it went really well since I did not encounter any sort of issues, but when I tried to access my website, this showed up
I also tried to access the wordpress admin thinking that the database error only affected the front end but when I tried accessing the wp-admin, this error message showed up.
So basically, what it means is that my website has a database problem, and I have no fucking idea why the hell it’s happening because I believe I have done everything correctly, and I really know the steps by heart, and I have already used this method a lot of times before, and the database error only happened to me a once or twice before when I forgot to update the configuration files of wordpress (wp-config.php)
So what I initially did after this error is I deleted everything, the wordpress installation, the subfolders, the database and the user, and started from scratch, but after repeating the steps doing again everything, the error was still there, and the hell I am so frustrated at that time.
I tried to calm down for a while because this is not going anywhere plus being furious and frustrated just make the matter worse. So after a while, and now already calm, I sat down again, faced my laptop and I tried to analyze everything looking for the error, and for some reason I thought I should look at the configuration file to see again in case there are errors with the database details which I really believe has no errors because I just copied and pasted these details to eliminate human error when typing, but still, I opened the wp-config.php file in the code editor to check the details one by one, character by character, and they are all the same! So I believe there are really no errors, but when I put the cursor in front of the first character of the password field then pushed the right arrow button so that the cursor will go to the right while checking if the characters are the same, something caught my attention
The parenthesis that is part of the password is messing up with the code!
So with this revelation, I think I already know the culprit, and for all I care, I thought this would never become an issue since the password is just a result of the Password Generator I used when creating the user database to produce a strong password, so I really didn’t mind what characters it would spit out and I have no idea that it would affect the configuration, but then, I just realized that the password is so strong that it even messed up with the database configuration
And to validate my gut feel, I changed the password, and making sure it has no parenthesis or any characters that could possibly mess up with the system, and the result is happiness that I really can’t describe, maybe a sigh of relief as well.
So the moral of the story? Be sure to use a strong password, but not “too strong” that it would mess up with the wordpress configuration, or maybe just make sure that your password has no parentheses. :p
Did you happen to experience some database errors before? We’re you able to fix it? Share your story below
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