mysql server can't be started: mysql.host doesn't exist

[Torsten Bronger]

Binary package hint: mysql-server-5.0

The MySQL server process can't be restarted:

bronger@wilson:~/src/chantal$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart
 * Stopping MySQL database server mysqld [ OK ]
 * Starting MySQL database server mysqld [fail]

daemon.log says:

Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld_safe[7307]: started
Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld[7311]: 080713 11:18:03 InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 0 43685
Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld[7311]: 080713 11:18:03 [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't open and lock privilege tables: Table 'mysql.host' doesn't exist
Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld_safe[7322]: ended

I haven't figured out which actions have led to this behaviour. I'm not aware of having made something unusual.

Re-installing mysql-server help but not for very long.

[Mathias Gug (mathiaz)]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 10:12:04AM -0000, Torsten Bronger wrote:
> daemon.log says:
>
> Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld_safe[7307]: started
> Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld[7311]: 080713 11:18:03 InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 0 43685
> Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld[7311]: 080713 11:18:03 [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't open and lock privilege tables: Table 'mysql.host' doesn't exist
> Jul 13 11:18:03 wilson mysqld_safe[7322]: ended
>

Could you check if you have apparmor messages in /var/log/kernel.log ?
Did you change the default mysql.cnf file ? Where are your data file
located (in /var/lib/mysql) ?

  status incomplete

--
Mathias Gug
Ubuntu Developer http://www.ubuntu.com

[Torsten Bronger (bronger)]

You mean "kern.log"? There are only the messages:

AppArmor: AppArmor initialized
AppArmor: AppArmor Filesystem Enabled

My MySQL data files are in /var/lib/mysql. The ISAM tables in /var/lib/mysql/mysql. However, I switched (for other reasons) to InnoDB tables. The file permissions are:

drwxr-xr-x 3 mysql mysql 4096 2008-07-16 07:56 .
drwxr-xr-x 62 root root 4096 2008-07-13 12:36 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 mysql mysql 0 2008-07-13 12:36 debian-5.0.flag
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 18874368 2008-07-15 22:27 ibdata1
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 5242880 2008-07-16 07:56 ib_logfile0
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 5242880 2008-06-25 21:41 ib_logfile1
drwx------ 2 mysql mysql 4096 2008-07-15 11:17 mysql
-rw------- 1 mysql mysql 7 2008-06-25 21:41 mysql_upgrade_info

In my.cnf, I only added

default-character-set = utf8
default-storage_engine = innodb

[Torsten Bronger (bronger)]

Additionally, I've had to kill the mysqld_safe process many times over the last weeks (due to bug #105457) which may or may not have something to do with it.