Hi y’ll! Happy Valentine’s Day for those who celebrate it. Me, myself, don’t. Cuz, you know. Enjoying single life. LOL. So yeah right, today I would like to share the easiest way to solve the common RoundCube Database Error: Connection Failed! problem in Vesta Control Panel.

This problem will occurs when you try to access your domain webmail, but then you’ll see a message saying:

DATABASE ERROR: CONNECTION FAILED!

Unable to connect to the database!
Please contact your server-administrator.

It sucks when you’re the server-administrator. You don’t know exactly what to do. Well in my case, after I saw these error warning, I check RoundCube errors log. You can read the errors log by using this commando

cat /var/log/roundcube/errors

What I saw then was:

[11-Feb-2015 14:55:44 +0000]: DB Error: SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user 'roundcube'@'localhost' (using password: YES) (GET /webmail/)
[11-Feb-2015 14:55:47 +0000]: DB Error: SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user 'roundcube'@'localhost' (using password: YES) in /usr/share/roundcube/program/lib/Roundcube/rcube_db.php on line 155 (GET /webmail/)
[11-Feb-2015 14:55:47 +0000]: DB Error: SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user 'roundcube'@'localhost' (using password: YES) (GET /webmail/)

I actually didn’t understand what I saw. I tried to find the error in /usr/share/roundcube/program/lib/Roundcube/rcube_db.php on line 155 but yeah no. It’s not there.

When I asked for a help in VestaCP Forum, I was told to change the password of the user roundcube in /etc/roundcube/debian-db.php and /var/lib/roundcube/config/db.inc.php. The problem is, I don’t even know the password of roundcube. So after thinking out loud for like a day or two, I decided to do these steps that leaded me to solve the problem:

1. Log in as root to PHPMyAdmin (http://yourdomain.com/phpmyadmin)
2. Go to Database, then create a new database named roundcube, click Create
3. Go to User, then Add user, create a new user named roundcube, and enter your desired password, click Go.
4. Go to Database again, click on roundcube, go to SQL and paste these codes from http://trac.roundcube.net/browser/github/SQL/mysql.initial.sql?rev=3d4a482fd7527cfd8ee9b86df239b7a833535cd4 and click Go.
5. Log out from your PhpMyAdmin and then back to your server.
6. Edit your /etc/roundcube/db.inc.php, /etc/roundcube/debian-db.php, and /var/lib/roundcube/config/db.inc.php using nano with the password you’ve entered when you created the user roundcube. Also replace localhost with 127.0.0.1
7. Go to your VestaCP if you have not created an email account or just go to your Webmail
8. The error message is gone and now you can use Roundcube without a problem!

It’s pretty easy right? If you have a problem following these steps don’t be shy to leave a comment. I will guide you til you can solve this problem.