MySQL server startup error 'The server quit without updating PID file'

Question

On Mac OS X v10.6 (Snow Leopard), starting MySQL gives the following error:

The server quit without updating PID file

File my.cnf

[mysqld] port            = 3306  socket          = /tmp/mysql.sock  skip-external-locking  key_buffer_size = 16K  pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid  [mysqld_safe]  log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log  pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid 

Answer 1

Try to find your log file with suffix ".err". There should be more information. It might be in:

/usr/local/var/mysql/your_computer_name.local.err 

It's probably a problem with permissions

1. Check if any MySQL instance is running

   ps -ef | grep mysql 

   If yes, you should stop it, or kill the process:

   kill -9 PID 

   where PID is the number displayed next to the username on the output of the previous command

2. Check ownership of /usr/local/var/mysql/

   ls -laF /usr/local/var/mysql/ 

   If it is owner by root, you should change it to mysql or your_user

   sudo chown -R mysql /usr/local/var/mysql/ 

Answer 2

Follow the instructions from brew install mysql.

Set up databases to run as your user account with:

For MySQL 5.x:

unset TMPDIR mysql_install_db --verbose --user=`whoami` --basedir="$(brew --prefix mysql)" --datadir=/usr/local/var/mysql --tmpdir=/tmp 

To set up base tables in another folder, or use a different user to run mysqld, view the help for mysqld_install_db:

mysql_install_db --help 

And view the MySQL documentation:

• 4.4.3 mysql_install_db — Initialize MySQL Data Directory
• 2.10.4 Securing the Initial MySQL Accounts

For MySQL 8.x:

unset TMPDIR mysqld --initialize-insecure --log-error-verbosity --user=`whoami` --basedir="$(brew --prefix mysql)" --datadir=/usr/local/var/mysql --tmpdir=/tmp 

Make sure the data directory /usr/local/var/mysql above is empty. Back it up if necessary.

To run as, for instance, user "mysql", you may need to sudo:

sudo mysql_install_db ...options... 

Start mysqld manually with:

mysql.server start 

Note: if this fails, you probably forgot to run the first two steps up above