Starting mysql error the server quit without updating pid file

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/
   

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

I had the same issue on my Mac machine (correctly followed all the installation steps suggested by brew install).

Deleting the error file fixed it for me:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql/dev.work.err (dev.work is my hostname)

This worked because dev.work.err was owned by _mysql:wheel instead of my own username.
CHOWN-ing the error file would have probably fixed it as well.

answered Mar 25, 2013 at 9:46

After rebooting I had the same issue. Here is how I fixed it:

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

This worked for me…

Check all of the MySQL processes running:

$ ps aux | grep mysql

USER     PID    %CPU  %MEM 
_mysql   5970   0.0   0.4 ...

Then kill all the processes listed from the above command using the following:

$ sudo kill -9 [PID]

Replace [PID] with the individual PID from the list above, e.g. 5970.

Do that for all of the lines you see with the first command.

Then you can startup your MySQL server again:

mysql.server start

Try to remove the ib_logfile0 and ib_logfile1 files and then run MySQL again:

rm /usr/local/var/mysql/ib_logfile0
rm /usr/local/var/mysql/ib_logfile1

It works for me.

This error can occur when trying to start MySQL after it was improperly shut down.

1. Take a look at the MySQL error log file. If it mentions something like «Check that you do not already have another mysqld process using the same data or log files.», then you need to properly shutdown that process.

2. See what process MySQL is running on. Use the command lsof -i:3306 (the default port number for MySQL is 3306).

   Your output should look like this:

   COMMAND   PID      USER  FD   TYPE  DEVICE             SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
   mysqld   4249  username  17u  IPv4  0x7843d9d130469c0b      0t0 TCP  localhost:mysql (LISTEN)
   

3. Terminate the process running mysql: kill -15 4249

   Kill -15 sends a signal to the process to free up any resources it is locking and terminate the process after.

4. Now MySQL should start up with no problems: mysql.server start

⚠️ This will erase your data, so make sure it’s backed up first.

If no one answer helped you, just remove folder /usr/local/var/mysql and then install MySQL again using brew reinstall mysql.

answered Dec 12, 2013 at 18:48

I recently came across this issue, however it was working before, then stopped.

This was because I initially started mysql.server as root instead of myself.

The fix was to delete the err log file (which was owned by _mysql). Starting it again got it passed.

For me the fix was simple.

top

showed that mysqld was already running.

sudo killall mysqld 

then allowed the process to start.

For me I had to reinstall MySQL:

brew reinstall mysql

And then the below to have launchd start MySQL now and restart at login:

brew services start mysql

The solution that worked for me was here: Can’t create PID file on MySQL server, permission denied

Changing some of my permissions seemed to do the trick. I’m running a mid-2012 MacBook Air with Mac OS X v10.8.2 (Mountain Lion) and MySQL was installed with Homebrew.

chmod 0755 /var
chown root:wheel /var/tmp
sudo chmod 0771 /usr/local/var/mysql/*

This worked for me:

Note: This a hard reinstall. Use when all other options have been exhausted.

On a Mac with Homebrew:

List all instances of MySQL that exists by running

brew services

Remove each instance by running

brew uninstall <instance_name>

Delete the MySQL directory in /usr/local/var/mysql:

rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql

Reinstall MySQL using Homebrew:

brew install mysql
brew install mysql@<version> #Optional

Rerun mysql.server start:

mysql.server start

answered May 31, 2020 at 2:25

I’m using

• a brand new MacBook Pro with OS X v10.7.3.x (Lion)
• GCC via the OS X GCC installer

I installed MySQL using Homebrew (‘brew install mysql’). It installed a couple of dependencies and then MySQL.

When I tried to start it up,

mysql.server start

Starting MySQL
.. ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file (/usr/local/var/mysql/west.local.pid).

I ran this command,

/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.25/scripts/mysql_install_db

and MySQL works.

Please take note that you need to run mysql_install_db from the top level of the MySQL directory (e.g., usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.25). Running it directly within the /scripts directory does not give it enough context for it to run.

I had this problem while trying to brew upgrade on Mac OS X v10.7.5 (Lion).

Unfortunately MySQL was also upgraded to 5.6.10 from 5.5.14. I tried the new version, but it did not work.

I decided to go back to my old setup and did a

brew switch mysql 5.5.14

This did not solve the problem. Elsewhere I read and did this, voila! All was back

cd /usr/local/var/mysql
mv ib_logfile0 ib_logfile0.bak
mv ib_logfile1 ib_logfile1.bak

For me the solution was to override/correct the data directory in /etc/my/cnf.

I built MySQL 5.5.27 from source with the directions provided in the readme file:

# Preconfiguration setup
shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -r -g mysql mysql
# Beginning of source-build specific instructions
shell> tar zxvf mysql-VERSION.tar.gz
shell> cd mysql-VERSION
shell> cmake .
shell> make
shell> make install
# End of source-build specific instructions

# Postinstallation setup
shell> cd /usr/local/mysql
shell> chown -R mysql .
shell> chgrp -R mysql .
shell> scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
shell> chown -R root .
shell> chown -R mysql data

# Next command is optional
shell> cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

# Next command is optional
shell> cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server

mysqld_safe terminated itself without explanation. running /etc/init.d/mysql.server start resulted in the error:

«The server quit without updating PID file»

I noticed something odd in the installation instructions though. It has ownership changed to mysql for the directory «data», but not to «var»; this is unusual because for years I have had to ensure that var directory was mysql writable. So I manually ran chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/var and then attempted to start it again. Still no luck. But worse, no .err file in the var dir — it was in the «data» dir! so scripts/mysql_install_db sets up camp in /usr/local/mysql/var, but the rest of the application seems to want to do its work in /usr/local/mysql/data!

So I just edited /etc/my.cnf and under the section [mysqld] I added a directive to explicitly point mysql’s data directory to var (as I normally expect it to be any how), and after doing so, mysqld starts up just fine. The directive to add looks like this:

datadir = /usr/local/mysql/var

Worked for me. Hope it helps for you.

answered Aug 12, 2012 at 7:38

answered Aug 13, 2020 at 16:11

It seems that the MySQL process is running, hence you are unable to use the port. You can check the running MySQL process using following command:

ps auxf | grep mysql

If you get any MySQL process, kill that process ID using kill -9 PID and then try to start MySQL.

answered Sep 9, 2015 at 3:12

Somehow I screwed up my permissions on Mac OS X v10.11 (El Capitan) and decided to reinstall MySQL from scratch.

I use Homebrew on El Capitan and decided to reinstall:

brew uninstall mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql
brew install mysql
mysql.server start # ... SUCCESS

The file permissions on a fresh install changed from _mysql to include my username:

ls -alh /usr/local/var/mysql
drwxr-xr-x   22 lfender  admin   748B Mar 22 09:58 .
# ... etc.

answered Jul 6, 2016 at 10:27

answered Nov 11, 2011 at 3:36

answered Nov 29, 2013 at 11:39

answered Mar 10, 2012 at 2:00

I had the same issue. For me it was doing a brew remove while having a previous install of the mysqld running. It seems Homebrew (brew) does not stop a service before uninstalling.

After checking the .err file I saw the logged error that another copy of MySQL may be running, after terminating the old service. I was then able to restart the new MySQL install.

answered Oct 25, 2014 at 18:48

ZangetsuZangetsu

1,80016 silver badges25 bronze badges

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/
   

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

I had the same issue on my Mac machine (correctly followed all the installation steps suggested by brew install).

Deleting the error file fixed it for me:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql/dev.work.err (dev.work is my hostname)

This worked because dev.work.err was owned by _mysql:wheel instead of my own username.
CHOWN-ing the error file would have probably fixed it as well.

answered Mar 25, 2013 at 9:46

After rebooting I had the same issue. Here is how I fixed it:

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

This worked for me…

Check all of the MySQL processes running:

$ ps aux | grep mysql

USER     PID    %CPU  %MEM 
_mysql   5970   0.0   0.4 ...

Then kill all the processes listed from the above command using the following:

$ sudo kill -9 [PID]

Replace [PID] with the individual PID from the list above, e.g. 5970.

Do that for all of the lines you see with the first command.

Then you can startup your MySQL server again:

mysql.server start

Try to remove the ib_logfile0 and ib_logfile1 files and then run MySQL again:

rm /usr/local/var/mysql/ib_logfile0
rm /usr/local/var/mysql/ib_logfile1

It works for me.

This error can occur when trying to start MySQL after it was improperly shut down.

1. Take a look at the MySQL error log file. If it mentions something like «Check that you do not already have another mysqld process using the same data or log files.», then you need to properly shutdown that process.

2. See what process MySQL is running on. Use the command lsof -i:3306 (the default port number for MySQL is 3306).

   Your output should look like this:

   COMMAND   PID      USER  FD   TYPE  DEVICE             SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
   mysqld   4249  username  17u  IPv4  0x7843d9d130469c0b      0t0 TCP  localhost:mysql (LISTEN)
   

3. Terminate the process running mysql: kill -15 4249

   Kill -15 sends a signal to the process to free up any resources it is locking and terminate the process after.

4. Now MySQL should start up with no problems: mysql.server start

⚠️ This will erase your data, so make sure it’s backed up first.

If no one answer helped you, just remove folder /usr/local/var/mysql and then install MySQL again using brew reinstall mysql.

answered Dec 12, 2013 at 18:48

I recently came across this issue, however it was working before, then stopped.

This was because I initially started mysql.server as root instead of myself.

The fix was to delete the err log file (which was owned by _mysql). Starting it again got it passed.

For me the fix was simple.

top

showed that mysqld was already running.

sudo killall mysqld 

then allowed the process to start.

For me I had to reinstall MySQL:

brew reinstall mysql

And then the below to have launchd start MySQL now and restart at login:

brew services start mysql

The solution that worked for me was here: Can’t create PID file on MySQL server, permission denied

Changing some of my permissions seemed to do the trick. I’m running a mid-2012 MacBook Air with Mac OS X v10.8.2 (Mountain Lion) and MySQL was installed with Homebrew.

chmod 0755 /var
chown root:wheel /var/tmp
sudo chmod 0771 /usr/local/var/mysql/*

This worked for me:

Note: This a hard reinstall. Use when all other options have been exhausted.

On a Mac with Homebrew:

List all instances of MySQL that exists by running

brew services

Remove each instance by running

brew uninstall <instance_name>

Delete the MySQL directory in /usr/local/var/mysql:

rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql

Reinstall MySQL using Homebrew:

brew install mysql
brew install mysql@<version> #Optional

Rerun mysql.server start:

mysql.server start

answered May 31, 2020 at 2:25

I’m using

• a brand new MacBook Pro with OS X v10.7.3.x (Lion)
• GCC via the OS X GCC installer

I installed MySQL using Homebrew (‘brew install mysql’). It installed a couple of dependencies and then MySQL.

When I tried to start it up,

mysql.server start

Starting MySQL
.. ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file (/usr/local/var/mysql/west.local.pid).

I ran this command,

/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.25/scripts/mysql_install_db

and MySQL works.

Please take note that you need to run mysql_install_db from the top level of the MySQL directory (e.g., usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.25). Running it directly within the /scripts directory does not give it enough context for it to run.

I had this problem while trying to brew upgrade on Mac OS X v10.7.5 (Lion).

Unfortunately MySQL was also upgraded to 5.6.10 from 5.5.14. I tried the new version, but it did not work.

I decided to go back to my old setup and did a

brew switch mysql 5.5.14

This did not solve the problem. Elsewhere I read and did this, voila! All was back

cd /usr/local/var/mysql
mv ib_logfile0 ib_logfile0.bak
mv ib_logfile1 ib_logfile1.bak

For me the solution was to override/correct the data directory in /etc/my/cnf.

I built MySQL 5.5.27 from source with the directions provided in the readme file:

# Preconfiguration setup
shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -r -g mysql mysql
# Beginning of source-build specific instructions
shell> tar zxvf mysql-VERSION.tar.gz
shell> cd mysql-VERSION
shell> cmake .
shell> make
shell> make install
# End of source-build specific instructions

# Postinstallation setup
shell> cd /usr/local/mysql
shell> chown -R mysql .
shell> chgrp -R mysql .
shell> scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
shell> chown -R root .
shell> chown -R mysql data

# Next command is optional
shell> cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

# Next command is optional
shell> cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server

mysqld_safe terminated itself without explanation. running /etc/init.d/mysql.server start resulted in the error:

«The server quit without updating PID file»

I noticed something odd in the installation instructions though. It has ownership changed to mysql for the directory «data», but not to «var»; this is unusual because for years I have had to ensure that var directory was mysql writable. So I manually ran chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/var and then attempted to start it again. Still no luck. But worse, no .err file in the var dir — it was in the «data» dir! so scripts/mysql_install_db sets up camp in /usr/local/mysql/var, but the rest of the application seems to want to do its work in /usr/local/mysql/data!

So I just edited /etc/my.cnf and under the section [mysqld] I added a directive to explicitly point mysql’s data directory to var (as I normally expect it to be any how), and after doing so, mysqld starts up just fine. The directive to add looks like this:

datadir = /usr/local/mysql/var

Worked for me. Hope it helps for you.

answered Aug 12, 2012 at 7:38

answered Aug 13, 2020 at 16:11

It seems that the MySQL process is running, hence you are unable to use the port. You can check the running MySQL process using following command:

ps auxf | grep mysql

If you get any MySQL process, kill that process ID using kill -9 PID and then try to start MySQL.

answered Sep 9, 2015 at 3:12

Somehow I screwed up my permissions on Mac OS X v10.11 (El Capitan) and decided to reinstall MySQL from scratch.

I use Homebrew on El Capitan and decided to reinstall:

brew uninstall mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql
brew install mysql
mysql.server start # ... SUCCESS

The file permissions on a fresh install changed from _mysql to include my username:

ls -alh /usr/local/var/mysql
drwxr-xr-x   22 lfender  admin   748B Mar 22 09:58 .
# ... etc.

answered Jul 6, 2016 at 10:27

answered Nov 11, 2011 at 3:36

answered Nov 29, 2013 at 11:39

answered Mar 10, 2012 at 2:00

I had the same issue. For me it was doing a brew remove while having a previous install of the mysqld running. It seems Homebrew (brew) does not stop a service before uninstalling.

After checking the .err file I saw the logged error that another copy of MySQL may be running, after terminating the old service. I was then able to restart the new MySQL install.

answered Oct 25, 2014 at 18:48

ZangetsuZangetsu

1,80016 silver badges25 bronze badges