MySQL not working with virtualhost - php

Question

I'm working locally on my Macbook Pro using XAMPP and I'm trying to setup virtualhosts so that I can work on multiple projects more easily.
Everything appears to be working fine except I can't connect to MySQL through PHPMyAdmin and on the XAMPP control panel it says MySQL isn't running. However, I can access MySQL through an application I have in my htdocs folder. When I access phpmyadmin through localhost/phpmyadmin the CSS is loaded and PHPMyAdmin appears to be located, but MySQL can't connect so I'm not quite sure where the issue lies (considering I can connect through my application)
Upon going to localhost/phpmyadmin I get the following error
#2002 - No such file or directory
The server is not responding (or the local server's socket is not correctly configured).
The thing is, I can access the database just fine through the application. I can log in, save and do any other sort of interactions with the database.
Here's what I have in my httpd-vhosts.conf file
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/test1"
ServerName localhost
<Directory /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/test1>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName pma
DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/phpmyadmin"
<Directory /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/phpmyadmin>
Options FollowSymLinks
DirectoryIndex index.php
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off
php_flag track_vars On
php_flag register_globals Off
php_value include_path .
</IfModule>
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Now for a summary
I set up virtualhosts for apache on my Macbook
The virtualhost setup appears to be working fine for the application I have in my htodcs folder, and it can connect to the database. I can log in, save data and all that stuff.
When I browse to localhost/phpmyadmin I get a MySQL connection error. If I browse to pma/phpmyadmin (the virtualhost I tried to create) Chrome and Firefox just search google for it instead of recognizing the alias (is that the correct term?)

Answer 1

I ran into the same thing with a WAMP server. I solved it by putting back the original "out of the box" server settings:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster#dummy-host.example.com
DocumentRoot "c:/Apache2/docs/dummy-host.example.com"
ServerName dummy-host.example.com
ServerAlias www.dummy-host.example.com
ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-error.log"
CustomLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-access.log" common
</VirtualHost>
And then for each project used code such as:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin#localhost
DocumentRoot "C:/wamp/projectname"
ServerName localhost
ServerAlias projectname.here
<Directory "C:/wamp/projectname">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all # <-- used for Apache 2.2
#Require all granted #<-- used for Apache 2.4+
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
For different projects, just duplicate the last set of code for each project, renaming the DocumentRoot, ServerAlias and Directory path. You will notice the "ServerAlias" line; this is what made Apache serve up the project when entering the alias in the web browser. I found the explanation here which ironically was in the httpd-vhosts.conf file.
Also, please note that my research recommends for higher versions of Apache to use Require all granted in place of Allow from all as commented in the code above.
All of this code is in the httpd-vhosts.conf file, which on my Windows 7 installation is at c:\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.2.21\conf\extra directory. Since you are using a Macbook and have already identified the location, I just put this in for other's reference.