Hello all - I am new to all things programming and DB but I have been learning and using XAMPP (1.8.1 on Win7) for a few months and have been having no problems for the most part. I have no issues connecting to XAMPP or PHPMyAdmin or interacting with my databases, even through php scripts on an HTML page. The issue I have been having is on the simple "http://localhost" page.
When first installed, the "localhost" page would show the "It Works!" message with no issues. I stopped loading this page and went straight to "localhost/xampp" most days. When I recently went to "localhost" it gave me the 'Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '$link' (T_VARIABLE) in C:\xampp\htdocs\controller.php on line 6' error which I researched and fixed by adding a ';' to line 5. Now when I load "localhost" I get the 'Could not connect to the database.' error message. I have tried to change the username and password in the 'controller.php' file but still get the same message. On the PHPMyAdmin page, the 'CD collection' example included also returns 'Could not connect to the database!'.
While I am having no other problems, I am about to build a site that will need to access the database. I'm afraid that this simple issue may become a bigger headache somewhere down the line. I've tried changing passwords, trying solutions found online, and everything else I could think of to no avail. About the only thing left that I can come up with is to reinstall and start from scratch but I'm sure the real solution is very simple.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, they will be greatly appreciated!