phpMyAdmin is throwing a #2002 cannot log in to the mysql server phpmyadmin

If you're getting the #2002 Cannot log in to the MySQL server error while logging in to phpmyadmin, try editing phpmyadmin/config.inc.php and change:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';

to:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = '127.0.0.1';

Solution from Ryan's blog

Edit (20-Mar-2015):

Note that if you're on a fresh install, config.inc.php may not exist. You need to rename / copy config.sample.inc.php and then change the relevant line

This is old but as it is the first result in Google,

Please note that this also happens when your MySql service is down,

I fixed this by simply restarting MySQL Server using:

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

in SSH (Command is for a CentOS/CPanel server)

Background: I am using Linux Mint 13. In my case, this error happened when I restarted the computer and my DHCP assigned a new local IP address (from 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.4) to my desktop.

sudo gedit /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Update

bind-address = 192.168.0.2

to

bind-address = localhost

This fixed the problem. Enjoy.

This can also be caused if you forget (as I did) to move config.inc.php into its proper place after completing the setup script.

After making the config folder and doing chmod o+rw config and going to localhost/phpmyadmin/setup and following those steps, you need to go back to the command line and finish things off:

mv config/config.inc.php .         # move file to current directory
chmod o-rw config.inc.php          # remove world read and write permissions
rm -rf config                      # remove not needed directory

See full instructions at https://phpmyadmin.readthedocs.org/en/latest/setup.html

After trying all of the above suggestions here is what fixed my #2002 error.

Add the following line to your config.inc.php file and change the number to your MySQL port:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = '3307'; // MySQL port

I had multiple mysql instances installed, and in this case, I had updated my.ini to run MySQL on port 3307, but had not updated phpMyAdmin to reflect the new port. In my case, the line for the port did not exist in the config.inc.php file, so I was not aware that it needed updating.