Can't start/configure/reinstall/uninstall MysSQL server

[guzabi]

Hi all,
I'm running in a strange problem with MySQL 5.5 on Debian 7.11 Wheezy. After a system update, MySQL server refused tu launch.
Rebooting the server didn't change anything. I'm thinking config error but :

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$ dpkg-reconfigure mysql-server
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: mysql-server is broken or not fully installed

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$ sudo dpkg --configure mysql-server-5.5
Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.54-0+deb7u2) ...
[ ok ] Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.
[FAIL] Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.5

So I thought "what the heck, I'll reinstall everything, but…

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$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall mysql-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
E: Internal Error, No file name for mysql-server:amd64

Whaaaaaaat? No mysql-server package? But, but…

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$ dpkg -l | grep mysql
ii  libdbd-mysql-perl                  4.021-1+deb7u2                 amd64        Perl5 database interface to the MySQL database
rc  libmysqlclient16                   5.1.73-1                       amd64        MySQL database client library
ii  libmysqlclient18:amd64             5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database client library
ii  mysql-client                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database client (metapackage depending on the latest version)
ii  mysql-client-5.5                   5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database client binaries
ii  mysql-common                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database common files, e.g. /etc/mysql/my.cnf
iU  mysql-server                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database server (metapackage depending on the latest version)
rc  mysql-server-5.1                   5.1.73-1                       amd64        MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
iF  mysql-server-5.5                   5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
ii  mysql-server-core-5.5              5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database server binaries
ii  php5-mysql                         5.4.45-0+deb7u7                amd64        MySQL module for php5

I have no exotic repo in sources.list, so I really don't know how to sort this out.
Somebody has an idea? Please...

[kedaha]

But your terminal output shows: mysql-server is broken or not fully installed
Try running:
# aptitude install -f

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     -f
           Try hard to fix the dependencies of broken packages, even if it
           means ignoring the actions requested on the command line.

           This corresponds to the configuration item Aptitude::CmdLine::Fix-
           Broken.

[debiman]

1) it says two packages are not fully installed. what's the other one?

2) at this point:

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    $ sudo dpkg --configure mysql-server-5.5
    Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.54-0+deb7u2) ...
    [ ok ] Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.
    [FAIL] Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed!
    invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
    dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
     subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
    Errors were encountered while processing:
     mysql-server-5.5

you should have investigated more.
i personally would have at least issued

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systemctl status mysql # (or mysqld or mysql-server)

3) this:

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E: Internal Error, No file name for mysql-server:amd64

is not the same as "no mysql package".

[guzabi]

Hello,

Thanks for your answers. And sorry if I did not properly investigate, I really don't know exactly how to do it

So here goes. kedaha, I did try to fix packages, but it does not work :

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$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.54-0+deb7u2) ...
[ ok ] Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.
[FAIL] Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.5; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.5 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.5
 mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Plus this takes an awful lot of time (about 2 minutes) when stopping MySQL and starting MySQL.

Then debiman : I do not know what other package is not installed. How do I know that?
Can you tell me how to investigate more? I do not seem to have systemctl installed, but :

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$ sudo service mysql status
[info] MySQL is stopped..

And then, I have no idea what the "no file name" error actually means, so I'm sorry if I thought that meant no package.
Once again, sorry. I'm not a really good sysadmin, I know, please bear with me

My goal is to get back a functional MySQL server and NOT lose existing DB's…
Please, please, can you help ? Thanks in advance.

[dilberts_left_nut]

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rc  mysql-server-5.1                   5.1.73-1

You still have config files for 5.1 installed.

[guzabi]

Yeah, I saw that (though can't figure why).
Do you have a clue as to how I could remove it?
apt-get remove claims it's not there and just tries to configure 5.5 (which fails) :

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$ sudo apt-get remove mysql-server-5.1
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'mysql-server-5.1' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.54-0+deb7u2) ...
[ ok ] Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.
[FAIL] Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.5; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.5 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.5
 mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[dilberts_left_nut]

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       purge
           purge is identical to remove except that packages are removed and purged (any configuration files are deleted too).

[guzabi]

Yes. But no :

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$ sudo apt-get purge mysql-server-5.1
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  mysql-server-5.1*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 53616 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing mysql-server-5.1 ...
Purging configuration files for mysql-server-5.1 ...
Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.54-0+deb7u2) ...
[ ok ] Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.
[FAIL] Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.5; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.5 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.5
 mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

What if I purge mysql-server-5.5 and then reinstall it?
Will it delete existing databases?

[dilberts_left_nut]

I wouldn't expect so.

[guzabi]

Okay. But this does not work either :

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$ sudo apt-get remove --purge mysql-server-core-5.5
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem. 
$ sudo apt-get purge mysql-server-5.5
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

dpkg --configure -a will fail, of course, because that is the problem : incomplete config.
I'm pretty stuck, here.
Anyone has an idea of how to get un-stuck?
Thanks in advance…

[dilberts_left_nut]

Looks messy.
You'd better read "man dpkg".

[dcihon]

Backup your databases.
Re install system.

[kedaha]

Use locate to find where all the mysql server files are; for example
$ locate mysql-server-core
$ locate mysql
After stopping the process, you can manually remove all the mysql server stuff prior to reinstalling.
After removing files, run:
updatedb
By the way, under no circumstances remove any files from /var/lib/dpkg/info/

[guzabi]

Hi all,

First of all, thanks for the effort and for bearing with my limited sysadmin competences.
Also, backup the DBs and reinstall the machine would be a last resort measure and lead to huge amount of trouble.
So I'd rather try not to do that.

I have 3 questions for you, kedaha (or anyone else, btw) :
1. locating and deleting seems fine, but what should I delete? All server files? Can you try to give me a list of packages I should look for?
I have posted a list of installed mysql packages, I reprint it here under.
2. Stopping the service is a problem : service status returns STOPPED, ps aux returns no mysql instance, but every time I try something, dpkg says it's stopping MySQL and that returns OK but takes almost 2 minutes. What is cooking in this jar?
3. Why does sudo apt-get install --reinstall mysql-server return "E: Internal Error, No file name for mysql-server:amd64"? What is corrupted and where?

Thanks a lot in advance, any help appreciated.

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$ dpkg -l | grep mysql
ii  libdbd-mysql-perl                  4.021-1+deb7u2                 amd64        Perl5 database interface to the MySQL database
rc  libmysqlclient16                   5.1.73-1                       amd64        MySQL database client library
ii  libmysqlclient18:amd64             5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database client library
ii  mysql-client                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database client (metapackage depending on the latest version)
ii  mysql-client-5.5                   5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database client binaries
ii  mysql-common                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database common files, e.g. /etc/mysql/my.cnf
iU  mysql-server                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database server (metapackage depending on the latest version)
rc  mysql-server-5.1                   5.1.73-1                       amd64        MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
iF  mysql-server-5.5                   5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
ii  mysql-server-core-5.5              5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database server binaries
ii  php5-mysql                         5.4.45-0+deb7u7                amd64        MySQL module for php5

[kedaha]

Take a look at: how-to-remove-mysql-completely-with-config-and-library-files, which gives more details.

[guzabi]

Hello all !

Me again. Turns out the solution was both simple and not elegant.
I noticed that the ibdata1 file was over 1 Gb, which is strange but ok.
So I just did this :

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$ sudo rm -Rf /var/lib/mysql/ibdata* /var/lib/mysql/ib_* 
$ sudo dpkg --configure -a 

and everything was ok. I was hen able to restart mysql server and all services.
Now the update seems complete :

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$ sudo dpkg -l | grep mysql
ii  libdbd-mysql-perl                  4.021-1+deb7u2                 amd64        Perl5 database interface to the MySQL database
rc  libmysqlclient16                   5.1.73-1                       amd64        MySQL database client library
ii  libmysqlclient18:amd64             5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database client library
ii  mysql-client                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database client (metapackage depending on the latest version)
ii  mysql-client-5.5                   5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database client binaries
ii  mysql-common                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database common files, e.g. /etc/mysql/my.cnf
ii  mysql-server                       5.5.54-0+deb7u2                all          MySQL database server (metapackage depending on the latest version)
ii  mysql-server-5.5                   5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
ii  mysql-server-core-5.5              5.5.54-0+deb7u2                amd64        MySQL database server binaries
ii  php5-mysql                         5.4.45-0+deb7u7                amd64        MySQL module for php5

Now everything seems ok.

Please also notice that mysqldump can't run if the server is broken, so in order to backup the databases, I would have had to copy the .MYD and .MYI files manually. Recovery is painful with a server that did not have a clean shutdown. Anyway. I did not need that, so hooray !

Thanks all for your help.
I'd like to tell you I know how I can avoid a too large or corrupt ibdata1 file, but I don't (and Google doesn't seem to have a clear answer either).
Any input welcome

[debiman]

take a note of this:

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rc  libmysqlclient16                   5.1.73-1                       amd64        MySQL database client library

more residual config.
might become relevant if you get stuck again later.

[guzabi]

Absolutely, saw and corrected it (apt-get remove --purge mysqlclient16).
Not it's not in the list anymore.