In the LimeSurvey installer, I get the error message, "Connection with database failed. Please check database location, user name and password and try again."

I've tried everything and I could not get past this error message. I'm running WHM/cPanel with a CSF firewall, and everything should be open and working. There are no system, PHP or firewall error messages, just the one from the install program.

I've installed other software such as phpList with no problem before. I'm using localhost as the MySQL database location. The database has been created, the user related to it and given full privileges.

Any ideas, anyone?

UPDATE:

I installed an earlier version (1.92) of LimeSurvey without a hitch.

Therefore, there is a BUG in the MySQL connection part of the version 2.05 install script.

If there is a bug, it can't be a general bug, because a lot of people could install 2.05 without a problem. I am running it on a Cpanel Vserver myself and never had a problem connecting.

Let's try and circle this, to get down to the cause.

If I remember right, the there were some changes in the connection to the database since 2.0.

Are you completely sure that you used the right login data with the 2.05 version? (just to make sure, don't get angry, but I have spent hours here with people and at the end it turns out the used the wrong details... ).

Make also sure that your webserver has everything it needs:

www.limesurvey.org/manual/Installation#M...rvey_on_your_website

Here it also talks about the difference from 1.x to 2.x in terms of database:

Please note that LimeSurvey 2.x uses different database drivers than 1.x . If you get a message not No DBO driver was found during the installation you will have to contact your webspace provider and ask them to activate one of the aforementioned database driver libraries.

Yes, I do have PDO installed: phpinfo shows Apache built with PDO and PDO mysql enabled.

I used the exact same database name, user id and password to install the older version and it connected just fine.

You may be running 2.05 on a cPanel system, but did you try installing that version? That's where the hang occurs - before the tables are built in an empty, new database.

Well, to get it "running" I need to install it somehow, right?

I admit I haven't installed the latest builds from scratch but used the update function. So I can't rule out completely that there might be a bug in the installation process of the latest builds.

However, to me this sounds still quite improbable, because otherwise the forum would be full of complaints during the last weeks. The latest built is from 03/10/2014, so there are about 2 weeks in between. That is why I feel like this is no general bug, but rather something that has to do with your specific constellation and was trying to rule some things out.

If you are convinced that it is a bug, then the best thing to do is to report in the bug tracker.

I've reported the bug on the bug tracker site.

To replicate it, you need to do a clean install using a new database with no existing tables.

I was curious, so I downloaded the latest version of LS (build 141003) and uploaded it to my vps which is running Cpanel / WHS.

Went through the installation smooth without any hickup.

I did the same on my local WAMP server, and when I clicked through without giving the right details for the database, I got the error message you were mentioning:



But once I used the correct details it also went through smoothly. So on my 2 systems (vserver with Cpanel and the localhost WAMP installation I could only reproduce the error when it was a real error).

So I guess we will need to find some other hooks where the problem could be so that the developers will be able to reproduce the problem.

It doesn't seem to be a general problem with the installation process, it is also not a general problem with Cpanel installations. It must be something more specific then.

Because of another issue I was looking through my tickets on my Cpanel vserver and I could see that about 2 years ago I have asked the admin to install PDO support. I can't remember why, but I guess it was because there was something wrong with it on my Cpanel server.

I can't tell if this could be the case with you, but maybe worth a try.