WAMP - phpmyadmin 403 error from localhost, but not from IP 127.0.0.1?

Question

I was wondering if anyone can explain this to me.

I installed WAMP 2.2. I opened up the dashboard menu, and clicked localhost. I was brought to the WAMP localhost home page. I clicked on phpmyadmin and get a 403 access is denied error message. However, if I type in the ip address 127.0.0.1/phpmyadmin in the address bar, then VOILA, I am in (however, I am not prompted to login to phpmyadmin, I am instantly brought to the phpmyadmin homepage)

Please note, I have found the solution to get rid of the 403 error message when entering phpmyadmin from the the localhost extension (change the Deny all setting to Allow all); so I am not asking how to solve that, but my question is:

Why if localhost and 127.0.0.1 go to the same spot, will when using the IP addres, I am granted access to subsequent applications and with localhost I am not?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

There is a bug present with the WAMP. Remove all other instance of 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file, because each time you installed WAMP, 127.0.0.1 will be added. ALso, remove or # ::1 if IPv6 support is present. Now restart the WAMP and give it 1 minutes and check it again. I have atleast tested it 5 times and all the times its work.

Answer 2

Probably you have in /etc/hosts something like 127.0.1.1 localhost instead of 127.0.0.1 localhost as it happens frequently and mysql is listening only 127.0.0.1

Answer 3

I have a similar problem. My contribution is to note that localhost goes away entirely if I disable my Ethernet card. I have 32-bit WinXP. In 'Control Panel' / 'Network Connections', I just right-click and disable the card. Puzzling. But it may help solve the problem.

Wamp 2.2a had more problems with localhost than Wamp 2.2d, which improved things remarkably. My current situation is that with the ethernet card in the normal state, enabled, localhost works perfectly except for phpMyAdmin, which requires the numerical address of 127.0.0.1 instead. This confirms my visual inspection of my HOSTS file that shows it's simple and correct.

My guess is that I could get localhost to work without my Ethernet card enabled, if I created a new bogus network of exactly the right kind, but I am loathe to experiment, as the situation is not blocking me.