A section at the beginning of the Documentation.html file (which is included with phpMyAdmin's software), discusses system requirements for the particular phpMyAdmin version we are using. It's crucial that these requirements be met, and that the environment be properly configured so that problems are avoided.

Some problems, looking like phpMyAdmin bugs, are in fact caused by the server environment. Sometimes, the web server is not configured to interpret .php files correctly, or the PHP component inside the web server does not run with the mysql or mysqli extensions. MySQL accounts may be badly configured. This can happen on home servers as well as on hosted servers.

When we suspect that something is wrong, we can try a simple PHP script, test.php, which contains the following code block, to check if the PHP component answers correctly:

<?php
echo 'hello';
?>

We should see the hello message. If this works, we can try another script:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

This script displays information about the PHP component, including the available extensions. We should at least see a section about MySQL (proving that the mysql extension is available), which gives information about the MySQL Client API version.

We can also try other PHP scripts that make a connection to MySQL, to see if the problem is more general than just phpMyAdmin not working. As a general rule, we should be running the latest stable versions of every component.

We should always double check the way in which we performed the installation, including correct permissions and ownerships. Typos may occur when modifying config.inc.php.

To help solve a problem, we should first pinpoint the origin of the error message. The following are the various components that can generate an error message: