Sounds like a typical permission problem, you need to ensure that your permissions can correctly read and write the database sock file. 

> **[Source][1]**
> 
> If your file my.cnf (usually in the */etc/mysql/* folder) is correctly
> configured with:
> 
>     socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock 
> You can check if mysql is running with the following command:
> 
>     mysqladmin -u root -p status 
> Try changing your permission to mysql folder. If you are working locally, you can try:
> 
>     sudo chmod -R 755 /var/lib/mysql/

If the above doesn't fix the problem then its likely something else, Visit [Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/mysql/mysql.sock' (38)][2] on Stack Overflow for more answers.


  [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/a/8084959/1892635
  [2]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5376427/cant-connect-to-local-mysql-server-through-socket-var-mysql-mysql-sock-38