MAMP “Apache couldn’t be started because port is in use.” AND “Can’t connect to local MySQL server through /tmp/mysql.sock

After restarting MAMP, I noticed the MySQL Server checkbox didn’t turn green as it usually does. I clicked ‘Start Servers’ again and got a message stating, “Apache couldn’t be started because port 8888 is in use by some other software.” Weird since I haven’t made any changes to the system or application, or installed any updates. I opened Chrome and entered the url of a site I’m developing locally and it showed up with no problem. But, when I tried to log into the site with a dummy user account I received a “SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘ /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock’ (2)” message.

Regarding the first problem (Apache Port in use by another program), I opened up Terminal and >> sudo lsof -i -P | grep -i "listen" to see which ports would show up. When MAMP was closed, the console output was

launchd 1 root 23u IPv6 0x156733646a84db9h 0t0 TCP *:5900 (LISTEN) launchd 1 root 24u IPv4 0x156733646a84eba8 0t0 TCP *:5900 (LISTEN) launchd 1 root 28u IPv6 0x156733646a84d75u 0t0 TCP localhost:631 (LISTEN) launchd 1 root 29u IPv4 0x156733646a84e3bu 0t0 TCP localhost:631 (LISTEN) launchd 1 root 31u IPv6 0x156733646a84d31u 0t0 TCP *:22 (LISTEN) launchd 1 root 32u IPv4 0x156733646a857ba5 0t0 TCP *:22 (LISTEN) kdc 96 root 6u IPv6 0x156733646a84cedt 0t0 TCP *:88 (LISTEN) kdc 96 root 8u IPv4 0x156733646c2a9ba5 0t0 TCP *:88 (LISTEN) imagent 270 userhomedirectory 7u IPv4 0x156733646a1a13bb 0t0 TCP *:52216 (LISTEN) EEventMan 279 userhomedirectory 4u IPv4 0x156733646a8573bb 0t0 TCP *:2968 (LISTEN) The output when MAMP is running is (everything listed above) + :

httpd 28772 userhomedirectory 5u IPv6 0x156733646a84b55f 0t0 TCP *:8888 (LISTEN) httpd 28786 userhomedirectory 5u IPv6 0x156733646a84b55f 0t0 TCP *:8888 (LISTEN) httpd 28790 userhomedirectory 5u IPv6 0x156733646a84b55f 0t0 TCP *:8888 (LISTEN) httpd 28791 userhomedirectory 5u IPv6 0x156733646a84b55f 0t0 TCP *:8888 (LISTEN) httpd 28792 userhomedirectory 5u IPv6 0x156733646a84b55f 0t0 TCP *:8888 (LISTEN) httpd 28793 userhomedirectory 5u IPv6 0x156733646a84b55f 0t0 TCP *:8888 (LISTEN) httpd 28794 userhomedirectory 5u IPv6 0x169041156a84b55f 0t0 TCP *:8888 (LISTEN)

So, Port 8888 is only in use when MAMP is launched, which also tells me that the web server is, in fact, connected. So I don’t understand why I’m getting an Apache port error.

Anyway, next I opened Activity Monitor and killed every httpd and mysqld process that was running and restarted MAMP but, the problem persisted. The mysqld process never reappeared after I killed it the first time.

Then, I searched SO. I came across a post regarding MAMP PRO and decided to try the suggested solutions but, to no avail. Same goes for this post‘s suggestion to delete and re-install the entire application.

By now I can’t tell if the mysql error is causing the apache error or if the apache error is causing the mysql error. So, I searched and tried several solutions regarding the mysql error including suggestions from this post, and this post, but none of them worked for me. I mean, I literally tried every single suggestion on those pages, from the posted answers to the comments.

I’ve also tried restarting my computer, changing the apache, nginx and mysql port configuration settings, switching from apache to nginx, loading MAMP’s MySql from Terminal, creating a my.cnf file with the socket configuration. None of which have worked.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it an Apache port error or a MySQL socket error? Or something totally different? And considering that there were no updates installed or changes to anything in the system or application, what could have caused this?

Thanks in advance.

* **Edit December 10, 2014 ***
So I played around with this all night. I re-installed the application a couple of times. Installed some updates and even copied my laptop’s MAMP setup, which works, to my desktop. But, I still got the same errors. Then I changed MAMP’s document root back to the default Mac HD -> Applications -> MAMP -> htdocs and it worked! I had previously set it to /Users/userhomedirectory/Sites.

I posted this as an edit instead of an answer because the problem still exists. Changing the document root back to Users/myhomedirectory/Sites gives me the same error messages as before so my solution is more of a workaround. Hopefully this sets off a lightbulb for someone because I still can’t figure out what could be the cause and/or solution.

Related Posts:

  1. http://localhost:80 is not working on running Apache server through UniServer ZeroXIII
  2. How to remove index.php from WordPress site URL
  3. How to log in to phpMyAdmin with WAMP, what is the username and password?
  4. Should I use mysqli_real_escape string() or mysql_real_escape_string() for form data?
  5. Fatal error: Call to undefined function mysql_connect()
  6. PDOException SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
  7. PDOException SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
  8. Mysql query- How to use contains?
  9. How do I resolve a HTTP 414 “Request URI too long” error?
  10. mysqli_fetch_array() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli_result, boolean given in
  11. Invalid column count in CSV input on line 1 Error
  12. Invalid column count in CSV input on line 1 Error
  13. Getting an error when I visit http://localhost
  14. $wpdb->update or $wpdb->insert results in slashes being added in front of quotes
  15. PDO with INSERT INTO through prepared statements
  16. phpMyAdmin: secret passphrase?
  17. PDO bindParam() with prepared statement isn’t working
  18. Redirect vs RedirectMatch
  19. Forbidden :You don’t have permission to access /phpmyadmin on this server
  20. Creating a search form in PHP to search a database?
  21. How can I do ‘insert if not exists’ in MySQL?
  22. Fatal error: Call to a member function bind_param() on boolean [duplicate]
  23. MySqli Commands out of sync; you can’t run this command now
  24. What is the difference between the ‘www’ folder and ‘htdocs’ folder?
  25. Trying to get property of non-object in
  26. Fix Access denied for user ‘root’@’localhost’ for phpMyAdmin
  27. What is Options +FollowSymLinks?
  28. Getting connection failed: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known
  29. Commands out of sync; you can’t run this command now
  30. Lost connection to MySQL server at ‘reading initial communication packet’, system error: 0
  31. SSL error SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed
  32. PHP with MySQL 8.0+ error: The server requested authentication method unknown to the client
  33. SQLSTATE[HY093]: Invalid parameter number: parameter was not defined
  34. How can I do ‘insert if not exists’ in MySQL?
  35. Object of class DateTime could not be converted to string
  36. What does it mean to escape a string?
  37. Convert from MySQL datetime to another format with PHP
  38. mysqli::query(): Couldn’t fetch mysqli
  39. Unexpected Exception: SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user ****@’localhost’ (using password: YES)
  40. Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function mysql_escape_string()
  41. Warning: mysql_fetch_array() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in
  42. Call to a member function on null?
  43. SQLSTATE[HY093]: Invalid parameter number: number of bound variables does not match number of tokens on line 102
  44. Only variable references should be returned by reference – Codeigniter
  45. Warning: mysqli_query() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli, resource given
  46. MySQL query to get column names?
  47. What does MYSQLI_NUM mean and do?
  48. Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: error reading data from FastCGI server
  50. file_get_contents( ) not working
  51. Mysql where id is in array
  52. XAMPP, using port:81, cannot run localhost:81/mywebsite
  53. ERROR: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it
  54. What is the advantage of using try {} catch {} versus if {} else {}
  55. select * from table where column = value ^ column2= value
  56. Deprecated: mysql_query() [duplicate]
  57. “End of script output before headers” in Apache + PHP
  58. No query results for model [App\Products] Laravel
  59. Fatal error: Call to a member function query() on null
  60. mysqlworkbench giving version error on exporting database
  61. How to make DROP INDEX IF EXISTS for mysql?
  62. What is the meaning of sprintf(): Too few arguments
  63. Having a problem getting mysqli_query to execute
  64. CodeIgniter: Unable to connect to your database server using the provided settings Error Message
  65. How can I force users to access my page over HTTPS instead of HTTP?
  66. Getting a 500 Internal Server Error on Laravel 5+ Ubuntu 14.04
  67. Using PHP 7 with WAMP
  68. Can I store images in MySQL 
  69. MySQL Daemon Failed to Start – centos 6
  70. How to insert TIMESTAMP into my MySQL table?
  71. PHP Like thing similar to MySQL Like, for if statement?
  72. How get value from URL
  73. How to use Memcached with PHP7?
  74. select count(*) from table of mysql in php
  75. You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ””)’ at line 2
  76. Is XAMPP faster than running LAMP in WSL on Windows 10? [closed]
  77. How does WP work in conjunction with a web server?
  78. Check against server time to display SQL entries – Radio Station DJ Rotator Plugin
  79. How to edit content in WordPress and the Polylang – plugin? – with demosite
  80. Windows Setup: Error establishing a database connection
  81. WAMP SERVER Command Prompt SET PATH=%PATH%
  82. How do I get a file extension in PHP?
  83. How can I prevent SQL injection in PHP?
  84. Package php5 have no installation candidate (Ubuntu 16.04)
  85. Limit String Length
  86. Warning: mysqli_real_escape_string() expects exactly 2 parameters, 1 given… what I do wrong? 
  87. PHP: bootstrap.php
  88. Custom SQL query to get List of posts with featured image url
  89. Problems migrating WordPress to localhost
  90. apache cpu over 70% on localhost
  91. How to simultaneously access the same MySQL database in the main column and sidebar of WordPress?
  92. WordPress php mysql errors – errcode: 13 permission denied
  93. How to disable server signature on wordpress? [closed]
  94. How can I add a new row in a separate database when someone registers via WordPress?
  95. Processing ajax call to php to insert into mysql database
  96. WordPress Custom Query: Combining Two Functions
  97. the content of the uploads folder gets deleted periodically, how to figure out what causes it?
  98. Inserting other fields to existing registration form in a WordPress theme
  99. Splitting table data to pages with numbers
  100. retrieve wordpress post-meta using php not wordpress functions

Leave a Comment