I know that this is a common problem, and I have honestly searched though many forums, faqs, and mailing list archives for an answer. I get this message when trying to connect to a local MySQL database with the statement $db = mysql_connect('localhost', 'myUserID', 'myPassword') or die("Could not connect to mysql"); I know that the MySQL server is running, I can connect to it on the command line with the MySQL client, using the same user name and password as in the mysql_connect statement. I know that the socket is there where it is supposed to be, and that everyone has read and execute privileges to it. localhost is defined correctly in my hosts file. I have tried this with both the defaults for the socket 's path in php.in, and by explicitly typing in the path to the socket. The statement fails with the same error message no matter which I do. I have tried everything that I have found to look at on the many forums, etc. that I have looked at. I am at a loss as what to do next. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you Roger deBry -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php