Possible solutions to fix warning: mysqli_real_connect(): (HY000/2002): Connection refused in /var/www/wordpress/wp-includes/wp-db.php
This error (mysqli_real_connect(): (HY000/2002) occurs often when updating major plugins on a WordPress website that uses WP CLI to operate on the site’s database. I did a lot of research on this error to get the best possible solutions just in case someone else comes across this same error.
Here are the three possible solutions:
Solution 1
- Check to make sure the PHP version installed is up to PHP version 7.
- Review the wp-config for miss-configuration.
- Check the MySQL / database start, whether it’s running or not.
sudo service mysql status
- If the MYSQL / MariaDB status shows ” Failed to start mysqld.service: Unit not found “, then you need to start up the database again.
systemctl start mariadb
After which, you restart the WordPress website on your browser, the sites should be back up.
Solution 2
- Head over to your wp-config.php file.
- Try using the local server rather than the “localhost”. That means changing “localhost” to “127.0.0.1” at wp-config.php
Refresh the WordPress website after restarting the database, the website should be back online
Visit: The Emotional Computer for computer repairs and services.
Solution 3
If you are using a VPS, chances are that you are running out of memory that’s why this error keeps up showing up.
You should optimize the database of the WordPress website on the VPS using MySQLtuner.
Step 1
Install MySQLtuner
sudo apt-get install mysqltuner
Step 2
Run MySQLtuner
mysqltuner
Step 3
Input the login credencials
login: password:
Step 4
Below is sample analytics.
Your MySQL analysis would be different.
[OK] Thread cache hit rate: 99% (539 created / 68K connections) [OK] Table cache hit rate: 69% (274 open / 397 opened) [OK] Open file limit used: 1% (59/4K) [OK] Table locks acquired immediately: 100% (4M immediate / 4M locks) -------- Performance schema ------------- [--] Performance schema is disabled. -------- ThreadPool Metrics ------------- [--] ThreadPool stat is enabled. [--] Thread Pool Size: 1 thread(s). [--] Using default value is good enough for your version (10.1.44-MariaDB-0+deb9u1) -------- MyISAM Metrics ----------------- [!!] Key buffer used: 18.3% (3M used / 16M cache) [OK] Key buffer size / total MyISAM indexes: 16.0M/123.0K [!!] Read Key buffer hit rate: 90.0% (20 cached / 2 reads) -------- AriaDB Metrics ----------------- [--] AriaDB is enabled. [OK] Aria pagecache size / total Aria indexes: 128.0M/1B [!!] Aria pagecache hit rate: 86.2% (982K cached / 135K reads) -------- InnoDB Metrics ------------------ [--] InnoDB is enabled. [OK] InnoDB buffer pool / data size: 128.0M/53.7M [!!] InnoDB buffer pool <= 1G and innodb_buffer_pool_instances(!=1). [--] InnoDB Buffer Pool Chunk Size not used or defined in your version [OK] InnoDB Read buffer efficiency: 100.00% (220631287 hits/ 220633521 total) [!!] InnoDB Write Log efficiency: 71.98% (1777130 hits/ 2468813 total) [OK] InnoDB log waits: 0.00% (0 waits / 691683 writes) -------- TokuDB Metrics ---------------- [--] TokuDB is disabled. -------- Galera Metrics --------------- [--] Galera is disabled. -------- Replication Metrics ---------- [--] Galera Synchronous replication: NO [--] No replication slave(s) for this server. [--] This is a standalone server. -------- Recommendations ------------- General recommendations: Configure your accounts with ip or subnets only, then update your configuration with skip-name-resolve=1 When making adjustments, make tmp_table_size/max_heap_table_size equal Reduce your SELECT DISTINCT queries which have no LIMIT clause Variables to adjust: query_cache_size (> 16M) tmp_table_size (> 16M) max_heap_table_size (> 16M) innodb_buffer_pool_instances (=1)
Step 5
From the MySQLtuner analysis, you would need to adjust the MySQL config file(https://naijatochinco.site/etc/mysql/my.cnf) according to the recommendation provided by MySQL tuner.
Restart MySQL server after you have made the necessary changes to MySQL config file
systemctl restart mariadb
Hopefully, these solutions are able to provide help and insight to anyone having a similar problem.
