Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock’ (2)

I just manually installed a new plugin on my WordPress site, created a table in MySQL for the plugin’s entries, and when I try to open the page that uses the plugin, I receive this error:

DataTables warning (table id = 'to-do_list'): An error occurred while 
connecting to the database 'wordpress_clouse'. The error reported by the 
server was: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Can't connect to local MySQL server 
through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

This is the MySQL info listed in my config file (which I believe is correct):

"type" => "Mysql",
"user" => "root",
"pass" => "******",
"host" => "localhost",
"port" => "",
"db"   => "******"

This is the main contents of the /etc/my.cnf file:

# The following options will be passed to all MySQL clients
[client]
#port       = 3306
socket      = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

# The MySQL server
[mysqld]
#port       = 3306
socket      = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
log_error   = mysqld.err

skip-networking

I’ve looked at answers to similar errors but none of the solutions worked for me. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer

Here’s what helped me solve this problem, which was that the actual file directory on my server was /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock, not /var/lib/mysqld/mysqld.sock:

1. Open your my.cnf file
2. Add the following to your [client] section (if you don’t have a [client] section, then add it). It should look like this:

[client]

socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

The error should be gone. Many thanks to @alvits for pointing me in the right direction.