I'm writing to add some more details re: this bug. I encountered the same problem and figured out what the apt-get upgrade command did that made the mysql upgrade fail. I'm using a 64-bit version of Ubuntu 9.10 server on an Amazon EC2 instance. Since a couple weeks ago, "sudo apt-get upgrade" has failed because it can't upgrade MySQL successfully. When I run apt-get upgrade, the server downloads the latest MySQL files and stops the MySQL daemon in order to upgrade the server. But then it fails when trying to start MySQL. When I investigated the cause of this error, I realized that the cause of the problem is that the "sudo apt-get upgrade" creates 2 binary log files which have the root:root account and group as the owner. These binary log files are in the directory /var/lib/mysql/ and have names like mysql-bin.000107. I'm not sure why "sudo apt-get upgrade" creates 2 files, but it always seems to create 2 files. When I change the owner of these binary log files to mysql:mysql, then MySQL successfully starts. As a result of this bug, I haven't been able to successfully run sudo apt-get upgrade for a couple weeks. Any help or advice would be appreciated! Here is info about my server. Output from lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu 9.10 Release: 9.10 Amazon EC2 AMI: I created my own AMI but built it on top of the official Canonical Ubuntu 64-bit 9.10 AMI in December, 2009. CancelOk Here's the output from the apt-get upgrade command: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages have been kept back: bind9-host dnsutils libbind9-50 libdns50 libgssapi-krb5-2 libgssrpc4 libisc50 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libk5crypto3 libkadm5srv6 libkrb5-3 libkrb5-dev libkrb5support0 liblwres50 linux-ec2 linux-image-ec2 linux-image-virtual linux-virtual The following packages will be upgraded: apache2 apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2.2-bin apache2.2-common dpkg dpkg-dev tzdata 8 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 19 not upgraded. 2 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 5,136kB of archives. After this operation, 65.5kB disk space will be freed. Get:1 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main dpkg 1.15.4ubuntu2.1 [2,126kB] Get:2 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main tzdata 2010e-0ubuntu0.9.10 [683kB] Get:3 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main apache2 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2 [1,426B] Get:4 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main apache2-mpm-prefork 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2 [2,376B] Get:5 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main apache2.2-common 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2 [285kB] Get:6 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main apache2.2-bin 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2 [1,309kB] Get:7 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main apache2-utils 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2 [155kB] Get:8 http://us.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main dpkg-dev 1.15.4ubuntu2.1 [573kB] Fetched 5,136kB in 0s (16.4MB/s) Preconfiguring packages ... (Reading database ... 32789 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace dpkg 1.15.4ubuntu2 (using .../dpkg_1.15.4ubuntu2.1_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement dpkg ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up dpkg (1.15.4ubuntu2.1) ... (Reading database ... 32789 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace tzdata 2009u-0ubuntu0.9.10 (using .../tzdata_2010e-0ubuntu0.9.10_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement tzdata ... Setting up tzdata (2010e-0ubuntu0.9.10) ... Current default time zone: 'America/New_York' Local time is now: Fri Mar 12 12:57:25 EST 2010. Universal Time is now: Fri Mar 12 17:57:25 UTC 2010. Run 'dpkg-reconfigure tzdata' if you wish to change it. (Reading database ... 32798 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace apache2 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.1 (using .../apache2_2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement apache2 ... Preparing to replace apache2-mpm-prefork 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.1 (using .../apache2-mpm-prefork_2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2_all.deb) ... * Stopping web server htcacheclean ... waiting ...done. Unpacking replacement apache2-mpm-prefork ... Preparing to replace apache2.2-common 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.1 (using .../apache2.2-common_2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement apache2.2-common ... Preparing to replace apache2.2-bin 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.1 (using .../apache2.2-bin_2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement apache2.2-bin ... Preparing to replace apache2-utils 2.2.12-1ubuntu2.1 (using .../apache2-utils_2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement apache2-utils ... Preparing to replace dpkg-dev 1.15.4ubuntu2 (using .../dpkg-dev_1.15.4ubuntu2.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement dpkg-dev ... Processing triggers for ufw ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up mysql-server-5.1 (5.1.37-1ubuntu5.1) ... * Stopping MySQL database server mysqld ...done. * Starting MySQL database server mysqld ...fail! invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed. dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.1 (--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-5.1; however: Package mysql-server-5.1 is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Setting up apache2.2-bin (2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2) ... No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure. Setting up apache2-utils (2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2) ... Setting up apache2.2-common (2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2) ... Setting up apache2-mpm-prefork (2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2) ... * Starting web server apache2 ...done. Setting up apache2 (2.2.12-1ubuntu2.2) ... Setting up dpkg-dev (1.15.4ubuntu2.1) ... Errors were encountered while processing: mysql-server-5.1 mysql-server E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)