PHP PDO Try-Catch Error Handling and Common SQLSTATE Codes

Preventing Information Disclosure with Try-Catch

Uncaught PDOExceptions leak database usernames and plaintext passwords into stack traces. Wrap connection initialization and queries in try-catch blocks to log errors securely:

try {
    $pdo = new PDO($dsn, $user, $pass, $options);
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    error_log($e->getMessage());
    http_response_code(500);
    die("A database error occurred.");
}

Common SQLSTATE Error Codes

• SQLSTATE[28000] [1045]: Invalid database username or password. Verify permissions in cPanel MySQL Databases.
• SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002]: Connection refused. Verify database host is localhost or 127.0.0.1.
• SQLSTATE[42S02] [1146]: Table does not exist. Check table naming conventions and case sensitivity.
• SQLSTATE[23000] [1062]: Duplicate entry violation on unique index columns.