Thanks for the immediate response!

(I am presently very grateful for good tech support at my hosting company, too -- cause I got this fixed now.)

In my case:

they said:

"
We have not changed anything on the server. However, if you use 'localhost' in your scripts to connect to the database, it uses a socket. The socket breaks sometimes, and using '127.0.0.1' instead is more reliable, if a bit slower.

Please check if setting the database server to 127.0.0.1 solves the connection problem.

P.S. I have fixed the socket now, but I have no idea when it will go down again... 127.0.0.1 is by far more reliable.
"

So I just changed "localhost" to "127.0.0.1" in each of the "configure.php" files, and voila! I'm back online with the database.

Don't know if this will fix others' situations or not (and I'm assuming in any case you need to get your correct number from your host company -- not just use 127.0.0.1).

dustin