PHP5 to MySQL 5.5.47 connection issue resolved

It was a php.ini configuration issue

Details: When calling the PHP page with 

the MSQLi connection request got error 500 or mysql

portion of code did nothing.  No error no success indicator.

Had to uncomment (in php.ini)  

mysqli.allow_local_infile = On

in the following file

/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Then restart Apache