[mythtv-users] MySQL borked

[Phill Edwards]

> First, taking the thunder from Mike, this is one more reason for
> people to regularly (daily) run the database backup script and
> store the files in a "safe" place (not on the disk which contains
> the mysql database).  Databases crash.  Systems fail.  Power
> goes out.  UPS's are not.

Yes, I was expecting that :)

> I do not suppose you tried the various forced recovery options
> which are designed to (try to) recover from broken recovery
> files before trashing the mysql install?  Some of them enable
> one to simply ignore the transaction logs, so the database
> may not be 100% consistent, but it likely can be started up.
> What did the logs show for those attempts?

Yes, I restarted MySQL with this setting:
      innodb_force_recovery = 2
That allowed me to get into mysql and SELECT INTO OUTFILE. (Stupidly I
stored them in /tmp as that was the only place the mysql user seemed
to have easy write access to and I then lost them all on the reboot.
Not really a biggie that, it just means I'll have to restore the DB
from a backup which is a couple of months old so I'll lose access to
some recordings and have to run the orphn tidy up script). Anyway,
while this option allowed me to get MySQL running, I couldn't get it
running in normal mode afterwards with this setting turned back off. I
then dropped the mythconverg database and recreated it but I still
couldn't restart MySQL, so at that point I remove it and reinstalled.
And I STILL can't start it, which is why I'm now well and truly
confused and stuck.

> As an aside, have you disabled barriers on your filesystem
> (which can assist in the creation of the most interesting
> failures especially when power outages hit).

I don't know what "barriers" are, so the answer is No to that one.