DB connection error after copying a WordPress Multisite instance to a second location

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Here’s my setup. I have a Multisite instance running at http://example.com, and I want to do development and staging. Moving an existing Multisite instance of WP onto localhost is a nightmare, so I’m going to do dev on a staging location instead.

I set up http://staging.example.com to point to the /public_html/staging/ directory of the hosting account, and copied all of the WP files from my root into the /staging/ directory. I also copied the database files (SQL dump, imported the tables into a new database), and changed the wp-config.php file to point to the new database.

After running SQL to change the database records, I also change this one line in the wp-config.php file: 

/** Turning on WordPress MU, new in 3.0 */
define( 'MULTISITE', true );
define( 'SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', false );
$base="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/";
define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'example.com' ); // <- I change this line
define( 'PATH_CURRENT_SITE', "https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/" );
define( 'SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );
define( 'BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );

Changed to:

define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'staging.example.com' ); // <- now changed

When I load up http://staging.example.com, I get… Error establishing database connection!

I’ve checked and triple checked the username and password, made sure that the user has all privileges on the new staging database, and I’ve left the DBHOST as ‘localhost’ (although changing it to staging.example.com didn’t help, either).

Why would the database connection fail? Anyone? (Thanks for your help in advance.)

NB: http://example.com is working fine running on very similar db connection settings, just with a different database, so it’s not an issue with the database server being down.

4

One thought – when I go to www.example.com/staging/wp-admin it automatically redirects me to www.example.com/wp-admin

Could the redirect from staging.example.com to example.com/staging be conflicting with the existing install?

UPDATE: looks like it could be related to .htaccess issues and complicated domain references in the database

From the WP Codex:

Moving WordPress Multisite

Multisite is far more complicated to
move, as the database itself has multiple references to the server
name as well as the folder locations.

The best way to move Multisite is to move the files, edit the
.htaccess and wp-config.php (if the folder name containing Multisite
changed), and then manually edit the database. Search for all
instances of your domain name, and change them as needed. This step
cannot yet be easily automated. If you’re moving Multisite from one
folder to another, you will need to make sure you edit the wp_blogs
entries to change the folder name correctly.

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