Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' error

I have the same problem with drupal 6. I have to use a socket other than the default, cause the default socket is reserved for other purposes. In drupal 5 adding that line to settings.php worked, but it's not working in drupal 6.

Does anyone have an idea how to solve this problem?
[edit]
I got it working by writing the hostname as localhost:/path/to/socket.sock

I'm trying to set up a multisite using Drupal 6.2, and I am getting this same error.

After including

ini_set('mysql.default_socket', '/var/mysql/mysql.sock');

I get the same thing. When I tried to put information into the settings.php file by hand, I got a bunch of errors saying tables did not exist, so I can't easily skip the installer via that method.

When I try to include the second solution mentioned above, the same screen ("Site-Offline") but with a different error:

Incorrect database name 'path/to/socket.sock/{my actual database name}'.

On my Mac OS X 10.5 system, it was actually trying to use the mysqli extension intead of the old mysql.

I fixed this problem by editing /etc/php.ini and setting:
mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

Then I restarted apache (apachectl restart), and the rest of the install finished up just fine.

I've have been having this problem for some time. I could connect using the IP address and I could connect using dave.local. When I tried to connect using 'localhost' I got a 2002 error.

The fix turned out to be simple. I created a link to the actual mysql.sock that was in /tmp as follows:
sudo ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

The MySql 2002 error message will identify the socket it failed to open. In my case it was /var/mysql/mysql.sock

Make sure the /var/mysql directory exist prior to executing the above. If missing use sudo mkdir /var/mysql

Happy coding.

Here is a Tip:
Easy Troubleshooting

I've had another variation on the problem discussed above - only I'm running MAMP on a Mac, which has it's own little environment under its own folder inside the Applications directory. Although Apache/PHP was able to make connections fine, the mysql CLI client kept showing connection errors.

Here's the MAMP version of soft linking the mysql.sock file outside of MAMP world and out into the filesystem/OS at large (where the mysql CLI expects it):

cd /tmp
sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock mysql.sock

i've intermittently had the same issue on various versions of os x (in my case 10.6 server)

my solution...

• edit /etc/my.cnf
• change references for mysql.sock to /tmp/mysql.sock
• edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.mysql.mysqld.plist
• change --socket=??? to --socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
• reboot

this should resolve 'both ends' of where mysqld/pdo is attempting to 'locate' mysql.sock