Spunto the Rat Boy

Yea, I wondered about that too, the password actually does have some “special” characters, depending on exactly what you mean by special characters… but the problem persisted when I switched everything over to the test user, which had a very plain username and password. And also the other sites, which are working, have similar characters in their passwords. So I think that’s not it.

I’m very grateful to you for taking the time to think about this — please don’t feel obliged to carry on, but obviously if you have any more ideas I’d be happy to hear them!

Thanks,
Ben

I can view MariaDB error logging with journalctl, I’m not sure where I’d look to find specific login errors. Again, though, I can log in fine on the command line with the same deets so I know they work. But just in case, I created a new MariaDB user with all privileges on the database in question and edited wp-config.php — no luck.

At this point I’m starting to think that it’s partly a MariaDB bug — it’s definitely a WordPress thing, too, because that’s where the problem shows up, it’s fine on the command line and in the other site so there’s something about this specific context — here’s a snippet from the output of journalctl when I try to load my site:

mariadbd[168585]: 240512 10:13:56 [ERROR] mysqld got signal 11 ;
mariadbd[168585]: Sorry, we probably made a mistake, and this is a bug.
mariadbd[168585]: Your assistance in bug reporting will enable us to fix this for the next release.
mariadbd[168585]: To report this bug, see https://mariadb.com/kb/en/reporting-bugs

To my horror, I think that means I have to work out the bug reporting procedure and… you know, I’m not stupid, I’ve got some technical experience, but I’ve read it several times and my mind just slides off it like water off a good tent.

Thank you for your reply.

There is no db.php file in wp-content/ and the connection details from wp-config.php work fine on the command line.

I’m really grateful to you for thinking about it but I’m afraid it’s a bust.

Well, thank you so much! That’s sorted everything, I’m very grateful for your help ??

This is great, thanks for your prompt replies. I kind of thought the hack route would be a mistake, it’s great to know the developers have included a sensible way of doing things.

I’ll start with this as soon as I get a chance, and let you know how I get on.

Thanks very much ??