can't start MySql in Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard

Question

Maybe this answer helps:

mysql5.58 unstart server in mac os 10.6.5

I just installed MySQL 5.5.8 (mysql-5.5.8-osx10.6-x86_64.dmg) on Mac os X 10.6.5 and also had the problem that MySQL was not starting.

After reading this post: http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?11,399397,399606#msg-399606 and editing the file as suggested everything started working.

I also did

sudo chown -R root:wheel /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM

after reading https://discussions.apple.com/message/12820394 since when restarting my Mac OSx 10.6.6 it kept on asking something about not enough privileges. The line above solved that issue.

Now everything is working.

YOU MUST REINSTALL mySQL after upgrading to Snow Leopard and remove any previous versions as well as previous startup from the preference panel. install 86_64 10.5...I find the others did not work for me.

1. Download MySQL version Mac OS X 10.5 (x86_64) located at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.4.html#macosx-dmg
2. Install startup Item (follow instructions)
3. Then install the beta version (follow instructions)
4. If you want the start up in the Preference Panel...install mySQL.prefpane I find that SQL does not run from the terminal unless you start mySQL in the preference panel.

Okay... Finally I could install it! Why? or what I did? well I am not sure. first I downloaded and installed the package (I installed all the files(3) from the disk image) but I couldn't start it. (nor from the preferences panel, nor from the termial)

second I removed it and installed through mac ports.

again, the same thing. could not start it.

Now I deleted it again, installed from the package. (i am not sure if it was the exact same package but I think it is) Only this time I got the package from another site(its a mirror).

the site:

http://www.mmisoftware.co.uk/weblog/2009/08/29/mac-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-and-mysql/

and the link:

http://mirror.services.wisc.edu/mysql/Downloads/MySQL-5.1/mysql-5.1.37-osx10.5-x86.dmg

1.- install mysql-5-1.37-osx10.5-x86.pkg

2.- install MySQLStartupItem.pkg

3.- install MySQL.prefpanel

And this time is working fine (even the preferences panel!)

Nothing special, I don't know what happened the first two times.

But thank you all. Regards.

In order just to get MySQL working again (I haven't yet looked at startup), there is no need to reinstall . I've got my copy working by doing the following:

What you need to do is this:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86_64 /usr/local/mysql

This creates a symbolic link from the /usr/local/mysql directory to the location where MySQL is. This is critical, because unless you carefully backed up all your databases with mysqldump before running the Leopard upgrade, that's where all your data lives - and restoring it simply from a whole-hard-drive backup is going to be hard.

Now you can go to the right directory and start up mysql:

cd /usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86_64

sudo ./bin/mysqld_safe

You can now do the usual CTRL-Z to get back to the shell. To make sure mysqld is running, type:

sudo ps -A|grep mysql

I got something like this:

1220 ttys000 0:00.02 /bin/sh ./bin/mysqld_safe
1240 ttys000 0:00.39 /usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86_64/bin/mysqld --basedir=/usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86_64 --datadir=/usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86_64/data --user=mysql --pid-file=/usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86_64/data/dkmac-2.home.pid --port=3306 --socket=/tmp/mysql.soc

My copy of mysql now seems to work fine. At the very least, it's good enough to run mysqldump on all my databases, so that if I need to upgrade mysql by other means and dump my data directory, I'm still in good shape.

I'd guess that your iMac isn't 64-bit (you state in another thread it is an original white intel iMac). Try the 32-bit version of MySQL–it should install directly over the 64-bit version, I think.

How to tell if your Intel-based Mac has a 32-bit or 64-bit processor
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3696

First of all can I just say that I really really love the Internet community for all that it does in providing answers to everybody. I don't post a lot but everybody's posting here and on so many boards helped me so much! None of them gave me the right answer mind you, but here is my unique solution to this nightmare of a spending 2 solid days trying to install MySQL 5.5.9 on Snow Leopard 10.6. Skip to bottom for resolution.

Here's what happened.

I had a server crash recently. The server was rebuilt and of course MySQL 5.5.8 didn't work. What a worthless piece. I had 5.1.54 on my other machine. That had been a pain to install as well but not like this.

I had all sorts of issues installing with the dmg from mysql.org, installing mysql5 using macports, uninstalling trying to revert to 5.1.54 (couldn't because I couldn't find the receipt file with that info even though I followed the directions). After rming everything I could find related to mysql and then reinstalling 5.5.8 everything worked! Until I rebooted... ☹ I looked in my system preference mysql pane and found mysql server wasn't starting. (skip to end for resolution)

My first error (super common) included: ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysql.sock' and numerous other EXTREMELY common issues related to mysql.sock http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?11,9689,13272

Here were things I tried: 1)Create /etc/my.cnf file with the proper paths to mysql.sock. I even tried modifying mysql.server with vi directly. Modifying the php.ini was worthless. Nothing worked because MySQL wasn't starting, therefore it wasn't creating mysql.sock in the first place. Maybe you can point to the directory it is being created, and not the actual full file path i.e. not /tmp/mysql.sock but /tmp It was suggested but wasn't working because there was no mysql.sock because mysqld wasn't spawning.

2)Basedir and datadir modifications didn't work because there was no mysql.sock to point too.

Why? Because the mysql daemon wasn't starting. Without anything to start mysqld and thereby create mysql.sock I was doomed. They are an important part of the solution but if you try them and still get errors, you will know why.

3)sudo chown -R root:wheel /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/

didn't solve my problem. I ended up having that folder and all items set to root:wheel though in the end, because it was one of the many things recommended and its working. Maybe it could remain _mysql but wheel works.

4)Copy mysql.sock from another machine. Doesn't work. I had searched and searched my new machine and couldn't find mysql.sock. I was using find / | grep mysql.sock because locate mysql wasn't finding anything. Besides I was trying so many different things it wasn't updating enough to find my new installs. I now like find much more than locate, even though you can update the locate db. Anyhow you can't copy mysql.sock, even if you tar it because its a 0 byte file.

THE RESOLUTION: I finally stumbled onto the solution. I finally just typed mysqld from command line while I was in the proper bin directory. It said another process was running. _mysql was spawning a process that I could see in the Activity Monitor. I killed the active mysql process and when I typed mysqld again I found it was creating my mysql.sock file in the /private/tmp/mysql.sock

The mysql pref pane wouldn't start the right process on login, so I just disabled that for being worthless. It wouldn't start mysql because no mysql.sock was being created.

By then I had figured out that mysqld creates mysql.sock. I then found /opt/local/mysql/ and typed "open bin" in the terminal window. This opened the directory with mysqld in it.

I went to login items in the system preferences in my account settings and dragged and dropped the mysqld file onto the startup items there. THAT worked. Finally!

It works flawlessly because mysqld is starting up at login, which means mysql.sock is being created so no more errors about not being able to find mysql.sock.

open Terminal

cd /usr/local/mysql/support-files
sudo nano mysql.server

Find the lines:

basedir=
datadir=

change them to

basedir=/usr/local/mysql
datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data