You may receive the following error message while accessing Webmail on a Plesk server:
A fatal error has occurred
DB Error: connect failed
You need to make sure the ‘horde’ user is able to connect to the ‘horde’ database using the password mentioned in the file “/etc/psa/.webmail.shadow”. You have to create the file and specify a random password if the file is missing.
To set the password for user ‘horde’ , go to the mysql prompt.
#mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` mysql
On the mysql prompt, execute:
mysql> update user set password=password(password-from-.webmail.shadow) where user=’horde’;
Also make sure sql.safe_mode is set to off in /etc/php.ini file:
sql.safe_mode=Off
Restart Apache server once you save the file.
If the problem persists, use the password from “/etc/psa/webmail/horde/.horde.shadow” file. Go through the following steps:
#cp /etc/psa/webmail/horde/.horde.shadow /etc/psa/.webmail.shadow
#mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` mysql
mysql> update user set password=password(password-from-/etc/psa/webmail/horde/.horde.shadow) where user=’horde’;
You should now be able to access Webmail client.