Doctrine (with Symfony2) only tries connection to DB using root#localhost - authentication

Question

The error:(occurring in the prod env)
request.CRITICAL: PDOException: SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost' (using password: YES) (uncaught exception) at /srv/inta/current/vendor/doctrine-dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Driver/PDOConnection.php line 36 [] []
What I've tried so far
The weird thing is that I actually have access using the root user, and the provided password. Logging in as root via the console works great.
I'm using the following parameters.yml file located in app/config/
parameters:
database_driver: pdo_mysql
database_host: localhost
database_port: ~
database_name: int_apartments
database_user: root
database_password: pw goes here
mailer_transport: smtp
mailer_host: localhost
mailer_user: ~
mailer_password: ~
locale: en
secret: ThisTokenIsNotSoSecretChangeIt
As you can see, it is quite standard with only the name of the db, user and password changed.
In my config.yml located in app/config (the relevant portions)
imports:
- { resource: security.yml }
- { resource: parameters.yml }
...
doctrine:
dbal:
driver: %database_driver%
host: %database_host%
port: %database_port%
dbname: %database_name%
user: %database_user%
password: %database_password%
charset: UTF8
dbname: int_apartments
orm:
auto_generate_proxy_classes: %kernel.debug%
auto_mapping: true
mappings:
StofDoctrineExtensionsBundle: false
Now, I wanted to start at "step 1" and verify that the parameters.yml file is actually being imported, so I changed the host to "localhos" or the user to "tom" or whatever and the error message located in app/logs/prod.log stays exact as is - the location doesn't change and the user doesn't change.
So I checked my config_prod.yml located in app/config
imports:
- { resource: config.yml }
#doctrine:
# metadata_cache_driver: apc
# result_cache_driver: apc
# query_cache_driver: apc
monolog:
handlers:
main:
type: fingers_crossed
action_level: error
handler: nested
nested:
type: stream
path: %kernel.logs_dir%/%kernel.environment%.log
level: debug
...and everything seems standard!
Summary of what's going on
So here is the quick version.
Authentication error exists for root#localhost
Verified my authentication creditials by logging in as that user via the console
Want to check if the parameters.yml file is being loaded
Changed some values - none affected the error message
(small)Edit:
What I actually want to do is to connect to the DB as a completely different user with a different password. Even when I enter different credentials into my parameters.yml file, doctrine still spits out the "root#localhost" error.
Ideas?

Answer 1

Silly mistake, seems due to a bad user/group/owner configuration on the server.
the app/cache directory is owned by "root", but when I run
app/console cache:clear --env=prod --no-debug
I am running as another user (not root). So there were issues in clearing the cache and doctrine seems to have been using a very old configuration located in the cache files.
Lessons learned:
Always try running as root (as a last resort)
Use a properly configured web server to avoid ownership issues

Answer 2

I solved my problem by renaming the prod folder i uploaded to prod_old because the system could not delete the folder for some reason.