Today, i stopped being a fan of MAMP for integrating PHP Apache and MYSQL, and i decided to setup Apache, MYSQL and PHP stack on my MAC OS X 10.5.7 (leopard) the good old way…
But, i encountered this error: 2002 – Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/mysql/mysql.sock’ (2).
Wow… i then discovered funny enough, that MYSQL instance was running perfectly and i was able to connect MYSQL
via the MYSQL Admin GUI tool.
I made a lucky guess asserting, that the PHP config file may be missing some info, Hmmm…
Well the solution goes as follows:
I searched for “mysql.lock” and i discovered that the MYSQL Socket file was located in “/tmp/mysql.lock.
Also, in the my PHP.ini file the value for “mysql.default_socket” was entirely empty “”.
ehhhh… Run this command in Terminal to view hidden files “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE” and then followed by “killall Finder”.
Then Go to “private/etc/PHP.ini”. (note: private is a hidden folder).
If prior to this, in “private/etc/ “folder, the PHP.ini file does not exist copy and paste it there first.
Now open the PHP.ini file with say BBedit or TextWrangler.
Use command + F to find “mysql.default_socket” and paste “/tmp/mysql.sock” as it’s new value.
Finally restart your Apache web server with Terminal using “sudo apachectl graceful”.
After restart, PHP will be able to make connection calls to MYSQL with no forward a do or hassle.
