PHP Connection failed: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Connection refused

Php Problem Overview

I am trying to use a PHP connection to connect MySQL Database which is on phpmyadmin. Nothing fancy about the connection just trying to see whether the connection is successful or not. I am using MAMP to host the database, the connection I am trying to use is this:

<?php
$servername = "127.0.0.1";
$username = "root";
$password = "root";

try {
    $conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$servername;dbname=AppDatabase", $username, $password);
    // set the PDO error mode to exception
    $conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    echo "Connected successfully"; 
}
catch(PDOException $e)
{
    echo "Connection failed: " . $e->getMessage();
}
?>

I have been using postman to test to see if the connection is working, but I keep receiving this error message:

>Connection failed: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Connection refused

Before I was receiving an error message of:

>Connection failed: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory

This was because I had set the servername to localhost, through changing this to the IP address it has given me connection refused and I have no idea what is wrong.

Any help regarding this would be appreciated.

Php Solutions

Solution 1 - Php

I found the reason why the connection was not working, it was because the connection was trying to connect to port 8888, when it needed to connect to port 8889.

$conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$servername;port=8889;dbname=AppDatabase", $username, $password);

This fixed the problem, although changing the server name to localhost still gives the error.

Connection failed: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory

But it connects successfully when the IP address is entered for the server name.

Solution 2 - Php

In my case MySQL sever was not running. I restarted the MySQL server and issue was resolved.

//on ubuntu server
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start

To avoid MySQL stop problem, you can use the "initctl" utility in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Linux to make sure the service restarts in case of a failure or reboot. Please consider talking a snapshot of root volume (with mysql stopped) before performing this operations for data retention purpose[8]. You can use the following commands to manage the mysql service with "initctl" utility with stop and start operations.

$ sudo initctl stop mysql
$ sudo initctl start mysql

To verify the working, you can check the status of the service and get the process id (pid), simulate a failure by killing the "mysql" process and verify its status as running with new process id after sometime (typically within 1 minute) using the following commands.

$ sudo initctl status mysql         # get pid
$ sudo kill -9 <pid>                # kill mysql process
$ sudo initctl status mysql         # verify status as running after sometime

> Note : In latest Ubuntu version now initctl is replaced by systemctl

Solution 3 - Php

Using MAMP I changed the host=localhost to host=127.0.0.1. But a new issue came "connection refused"

Solved this by putting 'port' => '8889', in 'Datasources' => [

Solution 4 - Php

Using MAMP ON Mac, I solve my problem by renaming

/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock.lock

/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock

Solution 5 - Php

1. server cert verify flag

I was required to use SSL to connect, and needed to set PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_VERIFY_SERVER_CERT to false in the new PDO options array, besides the entry PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA for the CA file.

Without it, the mysql log on the server helpfully mentions

2021-07-27 17:02:51 597605 [Warning] Aborted connection 597605 to db: 'unconnected' user: 'unauthenticated' host: '192.168.10.123' (This connection closed normally without authentication)

where I was definitely passing the right db and username and such in the DSN. An empty options array will show the db and user in the error log, at least. I am sure there is a valid, technical reason for these things.
I am adding this information so I can more easily find it, the next time I end up on this page..

2. host in connection string

In the context of SSL, I've also seen the error when using the IP address instead of the hostname to connect, if the hostname was used as CN (Common Name) in the certificate.

Solution 6 - Php

For me was php version from mac instead of MAMP, PATH variable on .bash_profile was wrong. I just prepend the MAMP PHP bin folder to the $PATH env variable. For me was:

/Applications/mampstack-7.1.21-0/php/bin

In terminal run vim ~/.bash_profile to open ~/.bash_profile
Type i to be able to edit the file, add the bin directory as PATH variable on the top to the file:

export PATH="/Applications/mampstack-7.1.21-0/php/bin/:$PATH"
Hit ESC, Type :wq, and hit Enter
In Terminal run source ~/.bash_profile
In Terminal type which php, output should be the path to MAMP PHP install.

Solution 7 - Php

I had the same issue on a docker container from php:8.0-fpm-alpine image. I just added the following line in the Dockerfile and it fixed the issue:

RUN apk add mysql-client

Solution 8 - Php

For everyone if you still strugle with Refusing connection, here is my advice. Download XAMPP or other similar sw and just start MySQL. You dont have to run apache or other things just the MySQL.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Jonck	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Php	Jonck	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Php	vinod	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Php	Quentin Vaisala	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Php	Deyson	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Php	MSpreij	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Php	Mahdiyeh	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Php	Omid Ebrahimi	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Php	PatrikPika	View Answer on Stackoverflow