WP install on Westhost account

Could you be more specific about the type of problem you’re having installing WP?

Sure, thanks for your reply.
For DB_USER, I am using ‘root’. The password is the same password I use to access the server via ftp, and that works fine. I am using ‘localhost’ as the DB_HOST. I have the correct database name, ‘wp’. This is a fresh database, never before used for anything else (just like the site itself). It is in the default location, where MySQL placed it when it was created.
I still receive the “Error establishing a database connection!…” message.
Questions:

1. Must WordPress be unzipped directly on the server, or can I unzip it on my home machine and transfer the unzipped files to my host server? Is there a preference?
2. Which directory are the WordPress files supposed to be uploaded into?
3. I am the only person who will have administrative privledges to my site. Should I create a user account just for administering WordPress? If so, what permissions should I give that user? If so, should I create the WordPress admin account first and do all of this under that user name?

I am wide open to suggestions, including directory name conventions. I have no other databases on this server.
Thanks for your time.

Are you sure your ftp pw is the same as your db pw ?
On each of my accounts, unless I have made them the same myself, they are different. Does that make sense ?

Good question. Yes, they are the same at the moment, on purpose. I created them myself in order to ease the installation and reduce confusion, after which I planned to make changes.

1. I unzip them on my machine, then upload by ftp.
2. Wherever you want. My blog is at tamba2.org.uk/T2 so I uploaded the contents of the ‘wordpress’ folder into the T2 directory. If you want your blog to show at https://www.stanarama.com/ then upload straight into the root directory. WP doesn’t mind ??
3. Admin is automatically created by wordpress on completion of install.
For mysql, the user for the database should have ‘ALL’ priviledges, but you very probably have already.
Given the error message “Error establishing a database connection!..” I would start at the ‘localhost’ and the password as being sources of the issue.

The problem could be that the user you specify in wp-config.php cannot connect to the mysql database, or maybe that that particular user does not have permissions in the db.
Also, in some cases the username for the db is prefixed with something, like I’ve got hothost_carthik Do check that too.

I’m using Westhost as well and had absolutely no problem setting up WP. I used the following configuration:
User: root
Host: localhost
Password: ********* (same as the the PHPMyAdmin password)
DB Name: sf_general (name I chose in PHPMyAdmin)
I’m assuming you have PHPMyAdmin installed since there is an option to do so right in the control panel. It makes dealing with the databases much easier. You can also email me if you need additional help.
stealingfire at gmail dot com

One and all,
Thank you most sincerely for the assistance. It’s working now. How? Dang if I know! I was trying all day to set it up from my computer at work. Nada. I came home, tried from here and there it was. I didn’t change a thing.
Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. ??
Thanks again for the info. I would still like to know what happened. Maybe it was guilted into working…

I thought the instructions were kind of vague, too – and I was kicking myself because I’ve had MT installed before – twice – and I don’t remember having so many problems.
Same problems as stanarama here. Tried it on two server hosts with the same results. The kicker is that I went and found two other blogging packages that use MySQL and PHP and I got each of them running and tested out within 10 mins of downloading them…
I’ve followed the instructions to the letter here and get the db error described above. I’ve searched forums and haven’t found any new information. There has to be something else… ???