MySQLdb reconnect patch is harmful

[Gustavo Niemeyer]

Binary package hint: python-mysqldb

Ubuntu has inherited a patch from Debian in Python's MySQLdb package which
is quite harmful to any application which needs transactional behavior.

Here is a comment in Storm which explains the problem:

        # Here is another sad story about bad transactional behavior. MySQL
        # offers a feature to automatically reconnect dropped connections.
        # What sounds like a dream, is actually a nightmare for anyone who
        # is dealing with transactions. When a reconnection happens, the
        # currently running transaction is transparently rolled back, and
        # everything that was being done is lost, without notice. Not only
        # that, but the connection may be put back in AUTOCOMMIT mode, even
        # when that's not the default MySQLdb behavior. The MySQL developers
        # quickly understood that this is a terrible idea, and removed the
        # behavior in MySQL 5.0.3. Unfortunately, Debian and Ubuntu still
        # have a patch right now which *reenables* that behavior by default
        # even past version 5.0.3.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package python-mysqldb - 1.2.2-5ubuntu1

---------------
python-mysqldb (1.2.2-5ubuntu1) hardy; urgency=low

  * Disable the 02_reconnect patch. LP: #64270, #163184.

    Comment in Storm which explains the problem:

        # Here is another sad story about bad transactional behavior. MySQL
        # offers a feature to automatically reconnect dropped connections.
        # What sounds like a dream, is actually a nightmare for anyone who
        # is dealing with transactions. When a reconnection happens, the
        # currently running transaction is transparently rolled back, and
        # everything that was being done is lost, without notice. Not only
        # that, but the connection may be put back in AUTOCOMMIT mode, even
        # when that's not the default MySQLdb behavior. The MySQL developers
        # quickly understood that this is a terrible idea, and removed the
        # behavior in MySQL 5.0.3. Unfortunately, Debian and Ubuntu still
        # have a patch right now which *reenables* that behavior by default
        # even past version 5.0.3.

 -- Matthias Klose <email address hidden> Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:19:42 +0000