zend framework: models cannot interact with database on the server - database

Question

I have just finished my first site built with zend framework and all works great on my local machine.
Then I uploaded it to the server (godaddy) and all works except any connection my models do with the database. I have made a connetion to the database with regular PDO with the credentials in my application.ini and it worked, and I can interact with the model if it's not returning anything from the database (and again all the models work great on my local machine).
My models looks like this:
class Default_Model_picture extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract
{
protected $_name = 'pictures';
protected $_primary = 'id';
public function getPicturesByCategory($category)
{
$query = $this->select()->from(array('pictures'), array(
'pictures.id', 'pictures.pic_name', 'pictures.pic_desc',
'pictures.pic_category', 'pictures.pic_date_added',
'pictures.pic_larger', 'pictures.pic_url'));
$query->where('pic_category = ?', $category);
$query->order('pic_date_added ASC');
$result = $this->fetchAll($query);
return $result;
}
}
this is an example for a model, obviously i did not added lots of methods.
i have no idea what to do next.

Answer 1

I am assuming you set up the db connection correctly into $db. Afterwards you must set it as the default adapter for Zend_Db_Table.
Zend_Db_Table::setDefaultAdapter($db);
I am just assuming this is what went wrong. But it is a common problem, so I decided to go ahead and answer anyway.

Answer 2

Since your script works fine on your local machine, the first thing I check is if you have got the database connection params setup correctly in your application.ini
Try to write a test script that uses the pdo functions on itself (without zend framework). see if you get any errors at all
try {
$dbh = new PDO('mysql:host=YOURHOST;dbname=YOURDBNAME', $YOURUSERNAME, $YOURPASSWORD);
foreach($dbh->query('SELECT * from FOO') as $row) {
print_r($row);
}
$dbh = null;
} catch (PDOException $e) {
print "Error!: " . $e->getMessage() . "<br/>";
die();
}