Question:
phpBB: Critical Error, could not connect to the database!
Answer:
Errors of this kind occur quite often with fresh manual installations. Through first hand experience we have determined the common reasons to be
- no database or database user created.
- invalid database password.
- erroneous username or database name.
- the user you have set up for your database has not been granted access privileges.
- inability to connect to the database server (be it offline, or on a remote machine that times out on connection attempt).
When installing phpBB manually, you need to create the database and the respective user by hand from the MySQL management section of your control panel.
Please make sure that you use the correct password for the database.
Should the password be correct, please check that the database name or the user name you have set up are the same as the ones you have created. On cPanel-based hosting, those would include a prefix. Basically, if you named your database forum, the actual name will be
username_forum
where username is your cPanel username. Same applies for the database user.
In case you have made sure the above data is correct, please check if the database user has been granted ALL privileges for accessing the database (otherwise the script will not be able to read the records in the database).
With all three possibilities above corrected and you still getting the error, please raise a support ticket to make sure the MySQL service is up and running.
