If your GoDaddy website is showing the “Error establishing a database connection” instead of your home page, don’t panic.
This can be due to your database server being down or corrupted, or you entered the wrong login credentials. Fortunately, this error can easily be fixed by checking the connection, changing the URL, rebooting the server, testing login credentials, or checking WordPress login settings.
Why are you getting the “Error Establishing a Database Connection” message?
The “Error Establishing a Database Connection” message can appear for several reasons. Luckily, none of them are severe and can be fixed easily.
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However, it needs to be addressed for your website to work.
The database server is down
If there are some technical issues on the server, or your server is facing high traffic at the moment, your GoDaddy website will show the “Error establishing a database connection” message.
Your WordPress database is corrupt
Another reason the message appears is that your WordPress database may be corrupt. This may mean that your WordPress plugins are failing, some content is missing, or some fails are corrupted.
You entered the wrong database login credentials
Another easily-fixable reason for the error message to appear can be the wrong database login credentials. Check if you’ve entered different login credentials in the PHP files and MySQL database.
Five ways to fix GoDaddy “Error Establishing a Database Connection” in WordPress
- Check your connection with the hosting provider
Many hosting providers limit the number of connections allowed on their servers at once. If you’re on shared hosts, this can be a common occurrence. Use a caching plugin to reduce the database interactions on your GoDaddy website.
- Update your WP website URL
To fix the error message, go to the WordPress admin section, click “Settings,” then “General.” You can check and update your WordPress website URL, which should fix the error.
- Reboot your server
If your GoDaddy website shows the “Error establishing a database connection” message, another way to fix it is by rebooting your server. Rebooting can be done on the VPS server, not on the cPanel server.
- Test current login credentials
To test your current login credentials, you can use a built-in function of WordPress. The function most WordPress users use is “is_user_logged_in().” This test function will give you a True or False answer to the given command.
- Check wp-config login settings
Another way to fix the error message is to check the wp-config.php file in WordPress. This file includes the configuration details of your GoDaddy website, and you can check the login settings.
Conclusion
If you can’t open the home page of your GoDaddy website, you’re probably presented with the “Error establishing a database connection” message. This error can happen for various reasons, such as the database server being down, the WordPress database being corrupted, the wrong database login credentials, etc.
Fortunately, this can be easily fixed by checking the connection with the hosting provider, updating the WordPress URL, rebooting the server, testing the login credentials, or checking wp-config login settings.
