You have a WordPress site hosted on Microsoft Azure.Perhaps your site is part of a free or shared app service plan.
Trying to connect to the site, one day, you have this wordpress error message: Error establishing a database connection
How to find out and solve the problem?
Connecting to Microsoft Azure Service with FTP
First of all you have to connect to the site via ftp to understand where the error is. We can connect to Azure web application with FTP also. In the Overview section of the your Azure web application, select “Get publish profile”. It will download a file that has a lot of things and teh details about FTP username and password, which is constant and can be used for FTP connection.
Enable WordPress Debug Logging
You need FTP connection to enable WordPress Debug Logging. To enable error logging in WordPress, you will have to make both of the following changes :
- In wwwroot directory, create a file named .user.ini Add the following line:
log_errors=on
- In wwwroot directory, open wp-config.php
Add the following lines :
//Enable WP_DEBUG mode
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
//Enable Debug Logging to /wp-content/debug.log
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
//Supress errors and warnings to screen
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);
//Supress PHP errors to screen
ini_set('display_errors', 0);
Also comment the line :
/* define('WP_DEBUG', false); */
Analyze the Log File
Try to load your site. Now, through ftp, you can enter in the directoy LogFiles and analyze the file
php_errors.log
Database error
Perhaps you have a database error, for example a duplicate key problem. On azure, in your app service, select Mysql In -app button. On the top of the section, you can see the Manage button. Click on the button and you’ll load the phpMyAdmin portal on your local Mysql DB.
Duplicate entry
If you have this kind of error : Duplicate entry ‘XXXXX’ for key ‘PRIMARY’ for the query INSERT INTO `table_name`, just ran following command :
REPAIR TABLE table_name
That’s it! It was done.
