Ok 3 weeks and still pulling hair out

[Ayukawa]

the funny thing is EQAmin has no problem accessing database with same set varbles.

Is youe EQAdmin tool open at the same time you are booting the servers?

In the beginning I had the reverse problem. In order to fix it I had to create a second user account in mysql. Not a second database, but a second account that refrences the same database.

so my server runs off :

[Database]
host=edited host name
user=eq
password=edited pw
database=eq

And my EQAdmin runs off

[GENERAL]
DBNAME=eq
DBHOST=edited host name
DBUSERNAME=eq2
DBPASSWORD=edited password
EQPATH=C:\Program Files\EverQuest\
MAPSPATH=C:\My Documents\EQEmulation\EQAdmin Maps\

This way I was able to have both logged in at the same time. I do not understand why it needed it, but it did.

Of course I am running mysql on Linux and that may not apply to you, but if it applies to anyone else later, hopefully a search will pull up this thread if it may help them.