mysqli_connect not working for me

Hi,

I created a new droplet but same issue has occurred with my original droplet. Created lamp phpmyadmin sshless install.

connected to my page and changed the default index.html to index.php

Found my mySQL admin user + password and wrote the following script:

<?php $hostname = “p:127.0.0.1:3306”; $username = “admin”; $password = “xxxxxxxx”; $conn = mysqli_connect($hostname, $username, $password) OR DIE (“Unable to connect to database!”); ?>

and I am unable to connect to mySQL using mysqli_connect.

Tried with app and root as well , same results. with a different droplet I created a new user. New user managed to get connected using mysql workbench but still no results mysqli_connect.

This is the last hurdle for me to move all my stuff to Digital Ocean. I need to be able to connect my code to mt database.

What am I doing wrong?