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

Question

I installed LAMP on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) and then set root password on phpMyAdmin. I forgot the password and now I am unable to login. When I try to chan

Answer 1

I am seeing all these answers, but none offer the option to reset the password and no accepted answer. The actual question being he forgot his password, so he needs to reset, not see if it's running or not (installed or not) as most of these answers imply.

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To reset the password

Follow these steps (can be helpful if you really forget your password and you can try it anytime, even if you're not in the situation at the moment):

1. Stop mysql

   sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop
   

   Or for other distribution versions:

   sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld stop
   

2. Start MySQL in safe mode

   sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
   

3. Log into MySQL using root

   mysql -uroot
   

4. Select the MySQL database to use

   use mysql;
   

5. Reset the password

   -- MySQL version < 5.7
   update user set password=PASSWORD("mynewpassword") where User='root';
   
   -- MySQL 5.7, mysql.user table "password" field -> "authentication_string"
   
   update user set authentication_string=password('mynewpassword') where user='root';
   

6. Flush the privileges

   flush privileges;
   

7. Restart the server

   quit
   

8. Stop and start the server again

   Ubuntu and Debian:

   sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop
   ...
   sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start
   

   On CentOS, Fedora, and RHEL:

   sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld stop
   ...
   sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld start
   

9. Login with a new password

   mysql -u root -p
   

10. Type the new password and enjoy your server again like nothing happened

This was taken from Reset a MySQL root password.