codeigniter - cannot connect to MySQL database - php

Question

Error that is getting printed out
Unable to connect to your database server using the provided settings.
Filename: core/Loader.php
Line Number: 346
I have been looking through all the other questions and nothing seems to work. Still getting this error. All the info in my database.php file matched up to my info on the mysql server that I am running on the command line. I am also using mysqld and mysql.server start. I have tested the connection on the command line with
mysql -h localhost -uroot -p dbname
And that seems to work on my command line, but it is giving me the error above when I am referencing it on a localhost server I have set up with the codeigniter project. What am i doing wrong? I have double and triple checked naming conventions to make sure that it isn't the issue.
Also, I am on OS X Mavericks
my code in the config file is as follows:
$db['default']['hostname'] = 'localhost';
$db['default']['username'] = 'root';
$db['default']['password'] = 'PASS';
$db['default']['database'] = 'dbname';
$db['default']['dbdriver'] = 'mysql';
$db['default']['dbprefix'] = '';
$db['default']['pconnect'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['db_debug'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['cache_on'] = FALSE;
$db['default']['cachedir'] = '';
$db['default']['char_set'] = 'utf8';
$db['default']['dbcollat'] = 'utf8_general_ci';
$db['default']['swap_pre'] = '';
$db['default']['autoinit'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['stricton'] = FALSE;

Answer 1

I have run into this problem frequently myself with CodeIgniter. The usual solution (for me!) is to set 'pconnect' and 'db_debug' to FALSE:
$db['default']['pconnect'] = FALSE;
$db['default']['db_debug'] = FALSE;

Answer 2

I tried to change the following line in my config/database.php file and it worked. (The error your getting means something is wrong with your config/database.php)
'hostname' => '/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock',
Explanation for this behaviour is written here (MySQL on OSX finds mysql.sock wrongly).
Cheers!