Tried every thing still getting ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2) in mac

Question

Every time I run XAMPP and try to run $mysql -u root -p, its throwing me an error which is:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)

I am using XAMPP version 1.7.3 in Mac OS-10.9. Starting Apache and MySQL is not a problem and I have confirmed Apache has started by going to activity monitor.

Few things I tried:

1. checked if MySQL is running by typing this command in terminal: mysqladmin -u root -p status. Result was:

   mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed error: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)' Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: '/tmp/mysql.sock' exists!

2. I checked and found mysql.sock file in /var/mysql/mysql.sock.

Things that could have triggered this error but cant say what is wrong:

1. I recently upgraded my OS to Mavericks from Mountain Lion.
2. I had also installed separate MySQL to work with Ruby on Rails. I have made sure that version is off.

Without fixing this problem I am not able to do any development locally and connecting MySQL in PHP script seems impossible. So any help will be appreciated.

Here is error_log file from /applications/xampp/xamppfiles/logs/error_log:

[Sat Nov 02 09:56:31 2013] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Nov 02 09:56:39 2013] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sat Nov 02 09:56:40 2013] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sat Nov 02 09:56:40 2013] [notice] Digest: done
[Sat Nov 02 09:56:40 2013] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Nov 02 12:55:47 2013] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Nov 02 13:40:16 2013] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sat Nov 02 13:40:18 2013] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sat Nov 02 13:40:18 2013] [notice] Digest: done
[Sat Nov 02 13:40:18 2013] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Nov 02 15:12:39 2013] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Nov 02 20:54:41 2013] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sat Nov 02 20:54:43 2013] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sat Nov 02 20:54:43 2013] [notice] Digest: done
[Sat Nov 02 20:54:44 2013] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Nov 02 21:10:53 2013] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Nov 02 21:10:57 2013] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sat Nov 02 21:10:58 2013] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sat Nov 02 21:10:58 2013] [notice] Digest: done
[Sat Nov 02 21:10:58 2013] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Nov 02 21:31:39 2013] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Nov 02 21:31:44 2013] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sat Nov 02 21:31:47 2013] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sat Nov 02 21:31:47 2013] [notice] Digest: done
[Sat Nov 02 21:31:47 2013] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Nov 02 21:45:07 2013] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sun Nov 03 08:50:06 2013] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sun Nov 03 08:50:09 2013] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sun Nov 03 08:50:09 2013] [notice] Digest: done
[Sun Nov 03 08:50:10 2013] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations  

   

Answer 1

Finally manage to solve it. First I was looking on wrong directory, I should have looked into /applications/xampp/xamppfiles/.

List of things I did:

1. there was not tmp folder under /applications/xampp/xamppfiles, so I created it (mkdir tmp).

2. I searched for mysql.sock file and found it under /applications/xampp/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock.

As mysql server connection was not working via socket /tmp/mysql.sock, I used following command to point my /applications/xampp/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock to /tmp/mysql.sock file.

So this command did the trick:

ln -s /applications/xampp/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock /tmp/mysql.sock

3. now I restart xampp services and run: mysql -u root -p , I can get into mysql console. And I also tried connecting mysql from php script and its running ok.

After pulling hair for a day and half I finally managed to get it working hope people will find this helpful.