I am trying to connect to a database from expression engine. Running expression engine's dbtest.php file, I see that it connects to the database, but it cannot connect to any schema. I have triple-checked the name of the schema to make sure it's correct and tested many different schemas.
Now on MySQL workbench, I am able to connect to any schema and view the tables, so the MYSQL connection is up and there are no schema issues.
The server that is running my expression engine is using nginx, ubuntu 14.04 and php5-fpm
I was able to figure this out. The issue had nothing to do with expression engine, rather it had to do with the schema I was connecting to. The schema specifically needs users to be added to in order to access it.