MySQL Error 1049

Error number

1049

SQLSTATE

42000

Symbol

ER_BAD_DB_ERROR

Product

MySQL Server

Versions

All MySQL versions (checked on MySQL 8.0.46)

Category

Syntax & Names

Last reviewed

24 October 2026

What it means

Error 1049 means the database name you gave, in the connection settings, a USE statement or a db.table reference, does not exist on the server you are connected to.

MySQL checks database names before it looks at tables. If sales_db is not a database on this server, any statement that refers to it fails with 1049, whether the name came from USE sales_db, from sales_db.orders in a query, or from the database part of the connection string. In the connection case the error happens during login, so the application never gets a working connection; PDO then reports SQLSTATE HY000 with [1049] rather than 42000.

The name in quotes is exactly what MySQL searched for, so look at it closely: a typo, a missing environment prefix (shop versus shop_dev), a trailing character, or a database that exists on a different server or port than the one you reached. Database names map to directories, so on servers where lower_case_table_names is 0 (the default on Unix) Shop and shop are different databases.

Common causes

• A typo or the wrong environment name in the database setting, for example shop_prod on a development server that only has shop_dev.
• The database was never created: a fresh install, a new container or a CI job that runs migrations before CREATE DATABASE.
• The application reached a different MySQL server than expected, for example another instance on a different port, a local server instead of the remote one, or a replica that has not received the database.
• Letter case: the code says Shop but the database is shop, which matters on a server with lower_case_table_names = 0.
• A name with special characters such as a hyphen. Unquoted, USE my-shop is a syntax error (1064); quoted with backticks it is looked up literally and fails with 1049 if that exact name does not exist.

Diagnose it

Read-only These statements only read metadata (information_schema, performance_schema and SHOW statements) or your own data. They do not change data, privileges or configuration, so they are safe to run first.

SHOW DATABASES;

SELECT schema_name
FROM information_schema.schemata
WHERE schema_name LIKE '%sales%';

SELECT @@hostname AS server_host, @@port AS server_port, VERSION() AS server_version, CURRENT_USER() AS account;

SELECT @@lower_case_table_names AS lctn, @@version_compile_os AS os;

How to fix it

Each fix is labelled with what it changes. Try read-only checks and the least invasive fix first, and test changes outside production.

-- PHP PDO DSN
mysql:host=127.0.0.1;port=3306;dbname=shop;charset=utf8mb4

-- mysql client
mysql -u app -p -D shop

CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS shop_dev
    CHARACTER SET utf8mb4
    COLLATE utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci;

USE `my-shop`;
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM `my-shop`.orders;

SELECT id, total
FROM shop.orders
WHERE id = 10;

Examples

USE with a database name that does not exist

USE sales_db;

ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'sales_db'

A table qualified with the wrong database

CREATE TABLE orders (id INT PRIMARY KEY, total DECIMAL(10,2));

SELECT id, total
FROM shop_archive.orders;  -- this server has no shop_archive database

ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'shop_archive'

A hyphenated name quoted correctly but spelled wrongly

Without the backticks, USE my-shop; fails earlier with ERROR 1064 near '-shop', because the hyphen is read as a minus sign.

USE `my-shop`;

ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'my-shop'

How to prevent it

Keep the database name, host and port together in one environment-specific setting, and fail fast at start-up with a clear log line that prints the host, port and database (never the password) when the connection is refused.

Make environment set-up scripts create the database explicitly (CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS with a character set) before migrations run, and use lowercase database names without special characters so they behave the same on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Common questions

Learn more on CodeWithSQL

• How to install MySQL
• Run MySQL in Docker

Official documentation

• CREATE DATABASE statement
• SHOW DATABASES statement
• Identifier case sensitivity (lower_case_table_names)
• MySQL 8.0 server error message reference

Last technically reviewed 24 October 2026; examples and diagnostics run on MySQL 8.0.46. Message templates checked against the server's error catalogue (perror) for that version.