Common problem with a ‘PHP My Admin’ update.
I had a stupidly simple error that stopped me from accessing the PHP MyAdmin screen after opening Localhost.
I have used Bitnami for WordPress, XAMP for WordPress and WAMP for WordPress, and of course general website development. Yet I have never had this issue before with a ‘Forbidden access my MyAdmin’ error. I have the latest version installed, with a valid copy of the config file in place, so what was going wrong.
For the life of me I couldn’t see the problem.
The latest version of PHP was downloaded and visible in the Apps folder. I had renamed any older versions, here I am showing the name of the folders in the Apps directory.
So for the latest version of PHPMyAdmin you simply go to https://www.phpmyadmin.net/downloads/ and download the zip file called phpMyAdmin-5.2.1-all-languages. Extract(Unzip) the files into the documents/wamp64/apps/ folder or wherever yours are. Keep a copy of your PHPconfi.ini.php file to replace the same file name in the new PHPMyAdmin directory. Start WAMP64 in my case, so Apache webserver, Maria DB and MySQL. Open Localhost and check the PHP version. IMPORTANT. Is it the version you have just installed? Yes! Great! No?
phpMyAdmin-5.2.1-all-languages
When you download the zip file the name is “phpMyAdmin-5.2.1-all-languages“. When you unzip the contents you should find phpmyadmin-version-english (above image) folder in your apps folder. You should also see your older version of phpmyadmin in the apps folder. You will copy the config file from the old folder to the new folder, it’s important since this has content that will allow access to the MyAdmin application.
Now, this next bit is VERY important. If you try to run phpMyAdmin you may get an access forbidden message, or see an old version error, or not have access to the latest version of MyAdmin. This problem is very common, you’ll find lots of requests for help with this one if you start searching for the answer on the web. You will be told to go through the steps you took and took correctly. Some people have spent days trying to work out why they can’t see the latest version or have lost access to PHPMyAdmin.
The SOLUTION is stupidly simple. When you download the zip file it is called phpMyAdmin-5.2.1-all-languages.zip. You unzip the contents and the folder created should be phpMyAdmin-5.2.1, now it is a folder full of everything you need to access your website and run you websites database. You delete or rename the old directory only to have a problem with access. The reason is simple. phpMyAdmin-5.2.1 is incorrect! Incorrect naming of the folder. You MUST rename the folder to phpMyAdmin5.2.1-english. This is the main reason so many people have a problem with phpmyadmin access. The hyphen MUST be removed.
Now you can get back to admin jobs and run your website, you have fixed your issue with PHPMyAdmin.
Me, I’m copy over my WordPress themes to and SQL files that I copied earlier once I have re installed WordPress, at least I am only doing this on my local machine.
Have fun.
Phil.