How to fix mysql_connect() error in wp cli - php

Question

Problem:
I am trying to use wp cli to do stuff. As an example update wordpress:
wp core update
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function mysql_connect() in
path\to\wp-includes\wp-db.php:1564
Stack trace:
#0 path\to\wp-includes\wp-db.php(592): wpdb->db_connect()
#1 path\to\wp-includes\load.php(404):
wpdb->__construct(details)
#2 path\to\public\wp-settings.php(106): require_wp_db()
#3 phar://path/to/wp-cli.phar/php/WP_CLI/Runner.php(1182): require('C:\\path\\to\\...')
#4 phar://path/to/wp-cli.phar/php/WP_CLI/Runner.php(1107): WP_CLI\Runner->load_wordpress()
#5 phar://path/to/wp-cli.phar/php/WP_CLI/Bootstrap/LaunchRunner.php(23): WP_CLI\Runner->start()
#6 phar://path/to/wp-cli.phar/php/bootstrap.php(75): WP_CLI\Bootstrap\LaunchRunner->process(Object(WP_CLI\Bootstrap\BootstrapState))
#7 phar://path/to/wp-cli.phar/php/wp-cli.php(23): WP_CLI\bootstrap()
#8 phar://C:/ in path/to\wp-includes\wp-db.php on line 1564
As far as I can see the error is in mysql_connect().
I have read through the following answers:
Undefined function mysql_connect() - This seemed to suggest downloading some packages. I am reticent to do this cos I don't understand what they do (and currently I'm running php using MAMP so I am not sure if this will cause me more problems) but this did suggest to me that the issue was with php.ini which informs an attempted solution below.
Fatal error: Call to undefined function mysql_connect() - I don't think there is an error in my login details (the site itself works) so this doesn't seem to be the problem
Attempted solution - php.ini
When I check which php.ini wp cli is using via the
wp--info
command. It prints the following:
OS: Windows NT 10.0 build 17134 (Windows 10) i586
Shell: C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\bash.exe
PHP binary: C:\MAMP\bin\php\php7.2.1\php.exe
PHP version: 7.2.1
php.ini used:
WP-CLI root dir: phar://wp-cli.phar
WP-CLI vendor dir: phar://wp-cli.phar/vendor
WP_CLI phar path: C:\path\to\public
WP-CLI packages dir:
WP-CLI global config:
WP-CLI project config:
WP-CLI version: 1.5.1
So it seems no php.ini has been used here. So I think I need to fix that. In order to do that I've found $WP_CLI_PHP_ARGS which I'm trying to put in. Now I'm no coding superstar, but it seems I need to build a bash script to act as a wrapper because they don't work in the .phar version so I have combined two wrappers I found on the web to create this:
#!/usr/bin/env sh
dir=$(d=${0%[/\\]*}; cd "$d"; pwd)
# See if we are running in Cygwin by checking for cygpath program
if command -v 'cygpath' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
# Cygwin paths start with /cygdrive/ which will break windows PHP,
# so we need to translate the dir path to windows format. However
# we could be using cygwin PHP which does not require this, so we
# test if the path to PHP starts with /cygdrive/ rather than /usr/bin
if [[ $(which php) == /cygdrive/* ]]; then
dir=$(cygpath -m $dir);
fi
fi
dir=$(echo $dir | sed 's/ /\ /g')
"${WP_CLI_PHP}" $WP_CLI_PHP_ARGS "${dir}/wp-cli.phar" "$#"
When I run this it variously complains. I imagine I have made some kind of basic error. (I've also put "export WP_CLI_PHP_ARGS=/C/MAMP/bin/php/php7.2.1/php.ini-production" in my .bash_profile).

Answer 1

mysql_connect() is deprecated, as of PHP 5.5, and removed in PHP 7. PHP 5.5 is not a supported version of PHP, so the author should update their code.
Use mysqli_connect() instead.

Answer 2

Right, okay.
So the issue was flagged by wp-db and it looked as if mysql wasn't working but it was mysqli. Eventually I got the php.ini file working but I thought I'd post all the various solutions that might help others. Number 4 is what worked for me.
1) Turn off mysql_connect so as to force wordpress to use mysqli_connect. Go to wp-config.php and add the line
define('WP_USE_EXT_MYSQL', false);
2) Check your php.ini file is "--with-mysqli=shared" present in the configure command box?
3) Update your mysqli. I didn't do this one, but following this, the advice seems to be to run this in your shell.
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-common php7.0 php7.0-mysql
I'm running git-bash in on windows so that threw up a whole load of nonsense for me. If you're on linux this could work.
4)As above I notice php.ini wasn't give in the wp --info. I found the right file using (just create a file with that, and visit it from your server). This turned out to be in a different place than I was expecting. Then I fiddled with the bash wrapper above and eventually got this, which made the error disappear:
#!/usr/bin/env sh
dir=$(d=${0%[/\\]*}; cd "$d"; pwd)
# See if we are running in Cygwin by checking for cygpath program
if command -v 'cygpath' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
# Cygwin paths start with /cygdrive/ which will break windows PHP,
# so we need to translate the dir path to windows format. However
# we could be using cygwin PHP which does not require this, so we
# test if the path to PHP starts with /cygdrive/ rather than /usr/bin
if [[ $(which php) == /cygdrive/* ]]; then
dir=$(cygpath -m $dir);
fi
fi
dir=$(echo $dir | sed 's/ /\ /g')
php -c $WP_CLI_PHP_ARGS "${dir}/wp-cli.phar" "$#"
If I've done something stupid let me know, thanks for your time. Feel free to ask for clarifications.

Answer 3

Looks like your wordpress installation is trying to use mysql_connect in wp-db.php. Wordpress defaults to using mysql_connect if it cannot find mysqli installed OR is overridden.
mysqli comes installed with php 7 (and you're using php 7).
So, check wp-config.php and confirm that WP_USE_EXT_MYSQL is defined to false

Answer 4

I'm using Windows 10, PHP 8.0.7.
Installed wp-cli via phar file.
And got this error on every command:
Call to undefined function mysql_connect()...
So I've uncommented this string in my php.ini file:
extension=mysqli
And all worked fine for me. Hope it will be helpful for someone.