DSN hostspec problem

Hello, We moved our database from development to production today. While in development, my connection used an alias for its hostspec. For production, we are to use a URL instead of the alias. Upon plugging in the new information for our production connection string, it produces a 'call to undefined function' error after trying to connect. The new connection string looks like this: $dsn = "$db_type://$user:$pass@db.someServer.com"; $db = DB::connect($dsn);

    if (DB::isError($db))
    {
        $db->disconnect(); // this line contains error according to logs

I'm guessing the error is because of no connection or becuase it can't find the proper machine. Is there another way to code a connection string when it contains an actual URL instead of an alias? Thanks, Rog