Trying to install WordPress on my desktop with XAMPP

There’s something in your database setup that isn’t correct. If the connection details that you’ve set up in your wp-config.php file are correct (double-check them because it’s easy to get them wrong, for all of us!), the only other thing that springs to mind is that your user in MySQL doesn’t have the right permissions set up to access the database. That’s something that you should check.

As a tip, when I’m doing things locally, I use the ‘Users’ area in phpMyAdmin and use the ‘Create database with same name and grant all privileges.’ option as this ensures that my user has the access permissions needed.

Thank you catacaustic, Although my problem is still not solved, I did at least see that I had not granted all of the proper privileges, and I took care of that, but I did not see the option to ‘Create database with same name and grant all privileges.’ I did double and triple check the wp-config file settings, and they appear to be correct.

There’s a lot of different versions of phpMyAdmin. It should be there as you’re running your own “server” thorugh your PC. The naming may have changed, but there should be an option close to that when you create a new yser (it it only shown when you create a new user, not for any existing users).

On my local installs, I always use the default values for the MySQL user for whatever “stack” I am using. I never create a new user; just use the default.

For XAMPP and WAMPServer those are:

User: root

Password: <empty> … do not enter any value

For MAMP on the Mac and now Windows (beta)

User: root

Password: root

Try this:

– make sure both Apache and MySQL servers are running
– rename your existing wp-config.php to something like wp-config_ORG.php
– this will let the installer run again
– in phpMyAdmin, create a new, empty DB with a different name (lower case, no spaces), e.g. wordpress2
– don’t do anything else there ??
– start the install again with just https://localhost/wordpress , assuming wordpress contains all the WP files and folders and is in your XAMPP/htdocs folder
– at the first screen, click the Create a Configuration File button
– at the next screen, click the Let’s go! button
– at the next screen, enter the following:

Database name: wordpress2 (or whatever you named it)
User Name: root
Password: <empty> … do not enter any value
Database Host: localhost
Table Prefix: wp_ (leave as-is)

– click the Submit button and carry on! ??

I have done the above literally 100s of times with no issues ??

Thank you catacaustic for pointing me in the right direction.

2ninerniner2, I followed your instructions to the T, and WP gave me a message that the config file didn’t look like a config file, but that it could help. I’m guessing that my file was somehow corrupted, so I followed the screen prompts by filling in three test boxes and Bingo, I’m up and running.

Thank you both for your time and expertise. Have a great evening!