[Techtalk] Cannot get LAMP mysql or php to start

[Wim De Smet]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 3:30 AM, Leslie MacDougall <lesmacdee at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 9:59 PM, Wim De Smet <kromagg at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Leslie,
>>
>> It's best to reply to list, so others can follow along. :-)
>
> Hi, I don't have the option reply to list, but am hoping 'reply to
> all' is the same thing.

That's alright, I usually remove all other email addresses by hand.

>> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 10:34 AM, Leslie MacDougall <lesmacdee at gmail.com> wrote:
> lolz at lolz-ubuntu:/var/lib/dpkg$ apt-cache policy mysql-server
> mysql-server:
>  Installed: (none)
> mysql-server-5.0:
>  Installed: (none)

So I'm guessing you have mysql-server-5.1 installed (check with
apt-cache policy mysql-server-5.1).

>>> I can't do anything unless I run Isudo dpkg --configure -a
>>> running it gives the above error over an over again no matter which
>>> option you choose.
>>
>> Can you give us the error in its entiry? Especially the few lines
>> before/after it so we know which package is throwing them.
>
> I tried to do this but unfortunately itshut my browser down, and
> crashed my computer a few minutes later. I am sending this from
> someone else's (WINDOWS :((( !!!) machine.

I'm not sure what could cause something like that, usually when weird
stuff like that starts happening the root cause is more likely to be a
hardware problem. Any way, onwards.

> lolz at lolz-ubuntu:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -alolz at lolz-ubuntu:~$ sudo
> dpkg --configure -a
> [sudo] password for lolz:
> Setting up mtop (0.6.6-1.2) ...
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/mtop.postinst: 92: mysql: not found
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/mtop.postinst: 92: mysql: not found
> dpkg: error processing mtop (--configure):
>  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 127
> Setting up libdspam7-drv-mysql (3.6.8-9ubuntu3) ...
> dbconfig-common: writing config to /etc/dbconfig-common/libdspam7-drv-mysql.conf
> *** WARNING: ucf was run from a maintainer script that uses debconf, but
>             the script did not pass --debconf-ok to ucf. The maintainer
>             script should be fixed to not stop debconf before calling ucf,
>             and pass it this parameter. For now, ucf will revert to using
>             old-style, non-debconf prompting. Ugh!
>
>             Please inform the package maintainer about this problem.
> warning: database package not installed?
> dbconfig-common: libdspam7-drv-mysql configure: aborted.
> dbconfig-common: flushing administrative password
> dpkg: error processing libdspam7-drv-mysql (--configure):
>  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> Setting up auth2db-common (0.2.5-2+dfsg-1.1ubuntu1) ...

Well that confirms that dpkg is seriously confused about the state
your system is in right now. The following is a bit of a black art as
I'm not entirely sure when dpkg will allow you to get rid of the
packages.

Maybe a first option is to try to reinstall the 5.1 package (assuming
that's the one you have):
sudo apt-get install --reinstall mysql-server-5.1
or:
apt-get -f install (in case apt is aware of the problem)
If dpkg complains about that, you'll probably have to remove all those
broken packages first.If it actually works try running dpkg
--configure -a and see if it works.

Otherwise, try just removing broken packages with dpkg:
dpkg -r mtop libdspam7-drv-mysql
If that doesn't work (this might break stuff even more, but then
usually solved by reinstalling them later):
dpkg --no-triggers -r mtop libdspam7-drv-mysql (add any other packages
the fail on mysql)
or:
dpkg --force all -r mtop libdspam7-drv-mysql
or combined:
dpkg --force all --no-triggers -r mtop libdspam7-drv-mysql

This will most likely leave all sorts of junk from these packages
behind on your system so take note which of them you are removing so
you can reinstall them later and then remove them cleanly if
necessary.

regards,
Wim