two possible causes:

1. your database server isn't localhost, and thus it cannot connect to remote server
2. your webserver's command-line configuration for mysql client isn't fully complete, hence the charset warnings etc.

These are common symptoms of clustered hosting setups where the server administrator hasn't considered the need for command-line tools to be available to access the database from the webserver.

Hopefully your host can handle the error and make the required corrections. You'll have to report the issue to them.