Re: Best way to re-connect to db?
The answer by the hosting company was that the problem occurred on their end, due to an upgrade in servers supporting php 7.X, which blocked communications with all DBs with prefix :3306 (like mine). So it was restored by them, too.
Still, I would appreciate to know if -in the future- I want to reconnect with a DB, the only way doing that is by running mysite.com/install.php?