Question: I'm having trouble connecting to my mysql server with C# from a remote machine. I know the server is working, because I can access all of the tables through phpmyadmin. I have the firewall turned off on the server, I have the user configured for any host, and the connection string is formatted as:

```
Server=ip address;Uid=user;Pwd=password;Database=db name;

```

But when I call the Open method for the SqlConnection object I get a general server can't be found error and its obviously just timing out by the amount of time the method takes. I don't know if I missed some configuration for the mysql server and I don't really know what to try next...

Answer: 
It sounds like your using `SqlConnection`, which connects to **Microsoft SQL Server** databases.

You need to use a MySQL client library.
The `SqlConnection` class is used for connecting exclusively to Microsoft SQL Server. To connect to a MySQL database, you need to download the [MySQL Connector/NET](http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?47), then use the `MySqlConnection` class, which mirrors the `SqlConnection` and related classes fairly well.