SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Connection refused within Laravel homestead

I just ran into this and found that changing this in the .env file from 127.0.0.1 to localhost fixed it.

DB_HOST=localhost

Problem

In Laravel you have config/database.php where all the setup for the connection is located. You also have a .env file in the root directory in your project (which everyone uses for timesaving). This contains variables that you can use for the entire project.

On a standard L5 project the MySql section of config/database.php looks like this:

    'mysql' => [
        'driver'    => 'mysql',
        'host'      => env('DB_HOST', 'localhost'),
        'database'  => env('DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
        'username'  => env('DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
        'password'  => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
        'charset'   => 'utf8',
        'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
        'prefix'    => '',
        'strict'    => false,
        'engine'    => null,
    ],

Notice there is no port set!

Although in my .env file I had set DB_PORT=33060. But that value (3306) was never read into the config/database.php.
So don't be a dumbass like myself and forget to check the database.php file.

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FIX
Simply add 'port' => env('DB_PORT', 3306), to your config/database.php and set that value in .env like this DB_PORT=3306

If you are using MAMP on a mac OS add the following line to your mysql database config file

'unix_socket' => env('DB_SOCKET', ''),

and on your .env file add

DB_SOCKET=/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock