[Mediawiki-l] dumpBackup database error on MW 1.6.9?

[Ken McDonald]

I have two wikis, one using an earlier 1.6 version of MW (1.6.2 or .3 I 
think) and the second using 1.6.9. Both are fully functional. However, 
"dumpBackup.php --current" works for the first wiki, but not for the 
second; the error is

"(Can't contact the database server: Unknown error)".

Both wikis reside in the same directory, and are accessed by the same 
root url:   "www.mysite.com/newer/..."    will access the newer wiki, 
while   "www.mysite.com/..."   will access the older wiki. This is 
controlled by an index.php redirect in the parent directory of the two 
wiki directories:

global 'index.php' file:
----------------------
<?php
header( 'Location: http://www.mysite.com/older' ) ;
?>
---------------------
where 'older' is the directory containing the older wiki, the one for 
which dumpBackup works. Note that I don't know much PHP myself, I'm 
assuming this is where the redirect takes place.

Aside from that, both wikis are configured pretty identically. They use 
different databases, but access those databases through the same db user 
and db password, and that user has identical permissions on both 
databases. Some of the settings in LocalSettings.php controlling which 
users/types of users can do on the wikis differ between the two wikis, 
but I wouldn't imagine this should affect the database access.

Any suggestions as to what might be causing this would be greatly 
appreciated. We'd like to get dumpBackup working as soon as possible to 
do a database move.


Thanks,
Ken