Error establishing a database connection

[Otir]

Hi dear everyone,

I have a website on WordPress that has been down at least for the past two months:
http://terouma.net

It is hosted with OVH and for the past weeks, I have been going back and forth with their customer support (which is not the most responsive on earth but at least the guy who is following up with me keeps giving me answers and truly tries to help - and besides we can speak French together since it is a French-based host and it is my native language so no language barrier, except for the technical one, which is huge enough for me!)

Therefore, I have already ruled out that it is not an error in the database name, or user name or password and the SQL is fine at their end, and I even have no problem with two other sites on the same plan that can be accessing the database as seen here:

http://terouma.net/dotclear
and
http://terouma.net/joomlafr

So it is clearly something that seems to go wrong with my WordPress install.
So I asked on WordPress forums and I only got one answer from a nice guy from Arizona telling me to do what I had already done. And then I even got solicited by someone who sent me an email directly to offer to pay for $49 and they would fix it ~ which I found really tacky, since I am not able to put that amount otherwise I would have done it the first day and not after two months of trials and errors.

I do not know if this relevant but the error started to appear after I had been blocked by OVH for over quota and this is a website that is pretty much idle, so I assumed it was only spams getting in and after I optimized the database it was unlocked, but then I got the error as if something had reset the wrong way and I am completely unable to find what.

If someone is interested in helping me solve this mystery with me, I would really appreciate the guidance, because I don't understand anything about code and so forth!

Thank you so much for having read all this anyways!

Best,

[Amr.Mohammad87]

Greetings,
The reason can vary.
1. Your database login credentials (i.e. the authentication information) are wrong or have been changed.
2. Your database server is unresponsive.
3. Your database has been corrupted.

Make sure that you are getting the same error on both the front end of the site, and the back end of the site. If you are getting a different errors, the database may need to be repaired. If this repair did not fix the problem, then your database user password may be changed, then you may need to change your WordPress config file. If everything in this file is correct, then there may be something wrong on the server end.

[Otir]

Thank you very much Mohammed, I do appreciate your help a lot.

All the above has already been verified and ruled out.
I am really stuck.

Thanks anyway.

[hericles]

Is the actual error "Error establishing a database connection"? And has the support guy been able to give you any further information from the server logs?

[hericles]

And do you have the ability to access the site via FTP or similar?

[Otir]

Yes, I do have access via FTP
I also have access to the database to phpMyAdmin

I am not techie enough to know what I should be looking for as it feels it must be a very small error somewhere and this is where I am being frazzled and so frustrated that I can find a way to repair it and I am hoping someone can guide me.

[ZER09]

go to that link
http://terouma.net/wp-admin/
I hope that will fix the issue.

[Otir]

Hi Zero9
This had already been done at first (even several times) and repairing the database never resolved the issue.
I tried another time, just to make sure and lo and behold I still have the error message. :(

Thank you so much for stepping in and willing to help! I truly appreciate it.
Best
L

[ZER09]

when i tried to revisit your site it show me this.

To allow use of this page to automatically repair database problems, please add the following line to your wp-config.php file. Once this line is added to your config, reload this page. define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);

one more suggestio if your databse login credentials is correct and there is no wrong invalid config in your configuration file and your database is Ok.
you could test your wibiste to your local machine, and you can play everything there, so you have more flexibility to find out what causing it.
as you mentioned above you still have access to your ftp and phpmyadmin, try to download it.

i think it could be an invalid authentication credentials in your db. just have a look in your wp-config.php file, the codes there is not that hard to understand.

[Otir]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for having chipped in the advices and I am coming here to report the news that I have been able to get things work to the expense of ripping off the site completely and starting with a clean install.

The issue has not been clarified what it was but it was none of the already mentioned in this thread (which were all probed and where all the "classical" fixes that are also offered by WordPress support groups and forums)

Even my web host has not been able to identify if it had anything to do with the type of allocated space or limit I would have because of the offer this site is on (a shared server).

I will restart the website from scratch now.

Thanks again for your attention!

http://terouma.net

is working.

[Otir]

Also a little shoutout to a gentle soul who came to help me with the clean install who works with
http://digifix.us

Thanks Mark! ~ Otir