Hello wthebutcher,

Welcome to the Monastery. I do not know if you problem is resolved so I would like to add something minor.

I would agree with fellow monk Mr. Muskrat on the connect call but also I would use DBI/RaiseError on your connect call to capture any errors to see at least the possible reason of your error.

From the documentation:

The RaiseError attribute can be used to force errors to raise exceptio
+ns rather than simply return error codes in the normal way.
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Sample of code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use DBI;
use v5.10;
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';
use Config::Simple;

my %config = ();
my $path = 'conf.ini';

sub mysql_con {
    Config::Simple->import_from("".$path."", \%config)
    or die Config::Simple->error();

    my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:mysql::".$config{'MySQL.host'}.":".$co
+nfig{'MySQL.port'}."", 
               "".$config{'MySQL.user'}."",
               "".$config{'MySQL.pass'}."",
               { 'PrintError' => 1, 'RaiseError' => 1 , 'AutoInactiveD
+estroy' => 1 }
    ) or die "Could not connect to ". $config{'MySQL.host'} .": ". $DB
+I::errstr ."\n";

    my $databases = $dbh->do("SHOW DATABASES LIKE '".$config{'MySQL.db
+'}."'")
    or die "Error: " .dbh->errstr. "\n";

    $dbh->disconnect()
    or warn "Error disconnecting: $DBI::errstr\n";

    if ($databases eq 1) {
    return "Database: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} .
        " exists not creating: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} ."";
    }
    return "Database: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} .
    " does not exist create: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} ."";
}

say mysql_con();
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I also use the Config::Simple module as I prefer to when I have multiple scripts connecting to multiple databases. Sample of config file (conf.ini) bellow:

[MySQL]
user=user
pass=password
host=localhost
port=3306
db=PerlMonks
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Update: Adding ssl certification to connect:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use DBI;
use v5.10;
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';
use Config::Simple;

my %config = ();
my $path = 'conf.ini';

sub mysql_con {
    Config::Simple->import_from("".$path."", \%config)
    or die Config::Simple->error();

    my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:mysql::".$config{'MySQL.host'}.":".$co
+nfig{'MySQL.port'}.",
               mysql_ssl=1;
               mysql_ssl_client_key=/etc/mysql/certs/client-key.pem; 
               mysql_ssl_client_cert=/etc/mysql/certs/client-cert.pem;
               mysql_ssl_ca_file=/etc/mysql/certs/ca-cert.pem",
               $config{'MySQL.user'},
               $config{'MySQL.pass'},
               { 'PrintError' => 1, 'RaiseError' => 1 , 'AutoInactiveD
+estroy' => 1 }
    ) or die "Could not connect to ". $config{'MySQL.host'} .": ". $DB
+I::errstr ."\n";

    my $databases = $dbh->do("SHOW DATABASES LIKE '".$config{'MySQL.db
+'}."'")
    or die "Error: " .dbh->errstr. "\n";

    $dbh->disconnect()
    or warn "Error disconnecting: $DBI::errstr\n";

    if ($databases eq 1) {
    return "Database: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} .
        " exists not creating: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} ."";
    }
    return "Database: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} .
    " does not exist create: ". $config{'MySQL.db'} ."";
}

say mysql_con();

__END__

$ perl mysql.pl
Database: PerlMonks exists not creating: PerlMonks
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You can also read more about in similar question with examples DBI:mysql connection over SSL fails

Hope this helps, BR.