Mysql socket error 2002 on Linux Mint - Access denied

Question

My apache and xampp servers are running on port 2145 and 16443 respectively.

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp restart
Restarting XAMPP for Linux 1.8.2-5...

XAMPP: Stopping Apache...ok.
XAMPP: Stopping MySQL...not running.
XAMPP: Starting Apache...ok.
XAMPP: Starting MySQL...ok.

Stopping it says Not running!

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp stop
Stopping XAMPP for Linux 1.8.2-5...
XAMPP: Stopping Apache...ok.
XAMPP: Stopping MySQL...not running.

I tried setting the socket path in /etc/php5/cli/php.ini as

 mysql.default_socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

My /etc/mysql/my.cnf points to

socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
port = 3306

netstat -vulntp |grep -i mysql gives me

tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3306          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9789/mysqld  

I don't see any errors in the /var/log/mysql/error.log except a few deprecation warnings and notes.

And phpmyadmin was running before the system restart.