Error establishing a database connection

Can you please post the link of the website here.

Also try this:

From your Digital Ocean File Manager, go to the /wp-content/plugins in the directory where your website is installed. Now rename all of your plugins by appending something like “_temp” to their names.

Check if the problem still exists.

If the problem seems to have been fixed, then probably it was one of your plugins. Now start renaming your plugins back to their original names ONE-BY-ONE, and keep loading the website to see if its still working. The moment you encounter the problem again, you know the last plugin you renamed back is probably the culprit.

The link is https://ineffablewitchcraft.com/

My problem is, I don’t know what you mean by my Digital Ocean File Manager. The only way I have to access my plugins is through the WordPress wp-admin page and I can’t even get to that. I cannot follow that beginning tutorial because I do not know how to access anything listed there. There is literally not a single file anywhere saved on either of my harddrives titled “wp-config.” As mentioned it was a 1-click install directly to DigitalOcean, it does not appear that anything was downloaded or installed to my computer and there is no way to access my WordPress plugins through Digital Ocean, there is only a WordPress droplet that has no options for plugins until I am able to log into the wp-admin page.

@ineffablewitchcraft: ignore @shariqkhan2012’s suggestion; he’s wrong. Plugins don’t cause an “Error establishing a database connection”.

The problem is Digital Ocean. You need to ask their support for help since it’s a database connnection issue and you didn’t change anything.

You would have to go to your droplet server directory, find the wp-config.php file and compare those values with what you see in the database setup at Digital Ocean, and if you don’t know how to do that, you should just ask Digital Ocean.

There is literally not a single file anywhere saved on either of my harddrives titled “wp-config.”

There is nothing on your own PC. Everything that runs WordPress is at Digital Ocean.

@mark,

Can you please let me know why

ignore @shariqkhan2012’s suggestion; he’s wrong. Plugins don’t cause an “Error establishing a database connection”

I see plenty of tutorials suggesting deactivating the plugin in these scenarios.

For instance:

https://dailycodex.com/fix-error-establishing-a-database-connection-wordpress/

https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/fix-error-establishing-database-connection

May be you are correct and I am wrong, but please let me know why ??

@mark

Thank you! I don’t seem to have access to the droplet server directory, seems to be the main issue. I’ve sent in a support ticket to them, here’s hoping they can help me figure out what changed.

Well. They sent me a tutorial that was entirely unhelpful considering I still cannot access any kind of config file. But then I reset my droplet to reset my password and it fixed it. No idea why. Thanks!

But then I reset my droplet to reset my password and it fixed it.

At DO, resetting the droplet must be configured to reset the database password, too, so that’s why. That’s a proprietary system at DO, unlike what you’d have to do to fix the error at other hosts. In any event, the password should not have changed on its own; might have been a security issue at DO that caused it.

It was less that I forgot my password than I forgot my actual log in because I’m the worst. I reset it thinking I forgot my password but really I was just using the wrong username. Either way, it solved the issue!