 <p>So the solution was fairly simple for my case. </p> <p>After reading some articles like <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3694575/phpmyadmin-is-throwing-a-2002-cannot-log-in-to-the-mysql-server-phpmyadmin">this</a>, I viewed my phpmyadmin directory to find the <code>config.inc.php</code> file. This is what I still haven't figured out but there was no file with the same name. </p> <p>Instead, the file with the closest name was <code>config.sample.inc.php</code>, so I changed its file name and changed <code>$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';</code> to <code>$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = '127.0.0.1';</code>. Now I can log in with the phpmyadmin account.</p>