Changing the datadir on my.ini file is not being respected in WAMP

Question

I usually don't ask questions on this, but I'm beating my head against the wall with this one. I am trying to setup WAMP to work with Dropbox. I've used both these tutorials (http://mymediamagnet.com/how-to-setup-wamp-with-dropbox/ and http://abhisheksachan.blogspot.com/2012/08/web-development-environment-made-easy.html) as they both tell me the same thing.

The httpd.conf settings that you make in Apache have worked great. All my files in my new www folder are respected and are shared across multiple computers in Dropbox. But my setup to make the database files be stored in Dropbox don't seem to be respected.

I have edited the my.ini file to contain the right Dropbox mysql folder in datadir. I have copied everything from here: C:\wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.6.17\data to this new Dropbox mysql folder. But everytime I open phpmyadmin, and add or remove databases, it does it in the old wamp folder: C:\wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.6.17\data.

I find this my.ini file here: C:\wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.6.17 so I know it's the one that WAMP should be using. I've tried troubleshooting by deleting it completely, screwing up all the data in the file, but mysql just keeps on working and looking at the old database folder.

So my only thought was that this configuration file is not being respected. There are some instructions at the top that I don't completely understand about this being an example file but everywhere I look says that this is what wamp looks at. So now I'm lost and don't why it's not working.

Please help. Here is my entire my.ini file as I'm sure the key is somewhere in there.

# Example MySQL config file for medium systems.
#
# This is for a system with little memory (32M - 64M) where MySQL plays
# an important part, or systems up to 128M where MySQL is used together with
# other programs (such as a web server)
#
# You can copy this file to
# /etc/my.cnf to set global options,
# mysql-data-dir/my.cnf to set server-specific options (in this
# installation this directory is C:\mysql\data) or
# ~/.my.cnf to set user-specific options.
#
# In this file, you can use all long options that a program supports.
# If you want to know which options a program supports, run the program
# with the "--help" option.

# The following options will be passed to all MySQL clients
[client]
#password   = your_password
port        = 3306
socket      = /tmp/mysql.sock

# Here follows entries for some specific programs

# The MySQL server
[wampmysqld]
port        = 3306
socket      = /tmp/mysql.sock
key_buffer_size = 16M
max_allowed_packet = 1M
sort_buffer_size = 512K
net_buffer_length = 8K
read_buffer_size = 256K
read_rnd_buffer_size = 512K
myisam_sort_buffer_size = 8M
basedir=c:/wamp/bin/mysql/mysql5.6.17
log-error=c:/wamp/logs/mysql.log
datadir=c:/Users/E Money/Dropbox/wamp/mysql

lc-messages-dir=c:/wamp/bin/mysql/mysql5.6.17/share

# Change your locale here !
lc-messages=fr_FR

# Avoid warning
explicit_defaults_for_timestamp = TRUE

# Don't listen on a TCP/IP port at all. This can be a security enhancement,
# if all processes that need to connect to mysqld run on the same host.
# All interaction with mysqld must be made via Unix sockets or named pipes.
# Note that using this option without enabling named pipes on Windows
# (via the "enable-named-pipe" option) will render mysqld useless!
# 
#skip-networking

# Disable Federated by default
skip-federated

# Replication Master Server (default)
# binary logging is required for replication
log-bin=mysql-bin

# binary logging format - mixed recommended
binlog_format=mixed

# required unique id between 1 and 2^32 - 1
# defaults to 1 if master-host is not set
# but will not function as a master if omitted
server-id   = 1

# Replication Slave (comment out master section to use this)


# New for MySQL 5.6 if no slave
skip-slave-start

#
# To configure this host as a replication slave, you can choose between
# two methods :
#
# 1) Use the CHANGE MASTER TO command (fully described in our manual) -
#    the syntax is:
#
#    CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST=<host>, MASTER_PORT=<port>,
#    MASTER_USER=<user>, MASTER_PASSWORD=<password> ;
#
#    where you replace <host>, <user>, <password> by quoted strings and
#    <port> by the master's port number (3306 by default).
#
#    Example:
#
#    CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST='125.564.12.1', MASTER_PORT=3306,
#    MASTER_USER='joe', MASTER_PASSWORD='secret';
#
# OR
#
# 2) Set the variables below. However, in case you choose this method, then
#    start replication for the first time (even unsuccessfully, for example
#    if you mistyped the password in master-password and the slave fails to
#    connect), the slave will create a master.info file, and any later
#    change in this file to the variables' values below will be ignored and
#    overridden by the content of the master.info file, unless you shutdown
#    the slave server, delete master.info and restart the slaver server.
#    For that reason, you may want to leave the lines below untouched
#    (commented) and instead use CHANGE MASTER TO (see above)
#
# required unique id between 2 and 2^32 - 1
# (and different from the master)
# defaults to 2 if master-host is set
# but will not function as a slave if omitted
#server-id       = 2
#
# The replication master for this slave - required
#master-host     =   <hostname>
#
# The username the slave will use for authentication when connecting
# to the master - required
#master-user     =   <username>
#
# The password the slave will authenticate with when connecting to
# the master - required
#master-password =   <password>
#
# The port the master is listening on.
# optional - defaults to 3306
#master-port     =  <port>
#
# binary logging - not required for slaves, but recommended
#log-bin=mysql-bin

# Point the following paths to different dedicated disks
#tmpdir     = /tmp/     
#log-update     = /path-to-dedicated-directory/hostname

# Uncomment the following if you are using InnoDB tables
#innodb_data_home_dir = C:\mysql\data/
#innodb_data_file_path = ibdata1:10M:autoextend
#innodb_log_group_home_dir = C:\mysql\data/
#innodb_log_arch_dir = C:\mysql\data/
# You can set .._buffer_pool_size up to 50 - 80 %
# of RAM but beware of setting memory usage too high
#innodb_buffer_pool_size = 16M
#innodb_additional_mem_pool_size = 2M
# Set .._log_file_size to 25 % of buffer pool size
#innodb_log_file_size = 5M
#innodb_log_buffer_size = 8M
#innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 1
#innodb_lock_wait_timeout = 50

[mysqldump]
quick
max_allowed_packet = 16M

[mysql]
no-auto-rehash
# Remove the next comment character if you are not familiar with SQL
#safe-updates

[isamchk]
key_buffer = 20M
sort_buffer_size = 20M
read_buffer = 2M
write_buffer = 2M

[myisamchk]
key_buffer = 20M
sort_buffer_size = 20M
read_buffer = 2M
write_buffer = 2M

[mysqlhotcopy]
interactive-timeout

[mysqld]
port=3306
explicit_defaults_for_timestamp = TRUE

Answer 1

There was a little bug with the 64bit WAMPServer in version 2.5

Change this in your 64bit my.ini

From

# The MySQL server
[wampmysqld]

To

# The MySQL server
[wampmysqld64]

This section header must match the service name that MySQL server runs under, and on the 64bit WAMPServer it was changed to wampmysqld64, but this section header was forgotten about.

NOTE: You dont need to run 64bit WAMPServer just because your OS is Windows 64bit.

In fact the 64bit PHP is not yet a complete port and is still considered 'Experimental'

Also quite a few PHP Extensions are not converted to 64bit yet as well, so it is better to stay ywith the 32bit WampServer ( Apache/MySQL/PHP ) unless you have some very specific need to use the 64bit version.