install.php: Error messages don't give enough info on what went wrong

[eddie-dunn]

I was trying to install tinyissue but it kept failing on check_connect(), giving me the unhelpful error '<strong>Database Connect Error.</strong>!'. MySQL was up and running and I had provided the correct credentials.

I changed the function to

if(!$connect)
{
    return array('error' => '<strong>Database Connect Error: </strong>!' . mysql_error());
}

This actually gave me the error message I needed (Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock # Debian squeeze: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (13)) to solve the problem -- use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost as the address in the tinyissue config file.

Anyway, more informative error messages would be nice.

[ellisio]

@mikelbring Not sure if you're aware, but "localhost" is considered bad practice as it's considered a hostname and some user's configurations will be setup to not allow hostnames when trying to connect.

[eddie-dunn]

I wasn't aware of that. Then maybe the file config.app.example.php should be changed to use something better?

[ajira86]

You are right, it's illogical to propose localhost as example and having an error message like this -_- Perhaps better to put host_name or host_ip ?