Can't start MySQL after new installation.

[dwion]

I'm guessing, just a guess, that under normal circumstances my command prompt should not look like...

C:\Documents and Settings\Destry>

but rather something more like...

C:\>

?

[Izzy]

I am not having a go at you and nor do I believe Weidmann is . It is just a process to find the problem. A process of elimination and I am male and live in Australia so we wake and sleep at opposite ends of the clock. I am also an end user like you and not associated with XAMPP other than as an end user. I have several dedicated Linux boxes in a DC in the states so I am familiar with the workings of LAMPP servers.

I'm guessing, just a guess, that under normal circumstances my command prompt should not look like...

On the Desktop Taskbar clicking on Start\Run\cmd.exe will give you C:\Documents and Settings\Destry>

A command prompt run from within c:\xampp should give you C:\xampp>

Double clicking on a bat file is not recommended but the use of start/run is then cd to the location of your choice.

[Izzy]

Actually, I had the file "my" (without the extension). I just renamed it to "my.cnf". Izzy you mentioned something about looking in that file to see if the paths were correct, but I can't seem to open that file. It's called a "speeddial" file or something. Looks like to be a shortcut file to something else.

Sorry, I can see it and read it in the 1.5.3a zip file but it is a link file, as you say, in the \bin directory. I was confusing the my.cnf file with the my.ini file which is in C:\Windows\. Silly me.

The error log you may wish to look at is in the mysql/data directory called *.err (* = destry ??perhaps) just drag it in to your text editor to read it, but I realise that this log will not show you why you are getting the wrong path error.

I have had time to try and replicate your problem on a machine here but with out success. I followed Weidmann's instructions, that were for you, on my XAMPP 1.4.13 installation and had no problems at all. The fog thickens.

[dwion]

I am not having a go at you and nor do I believe Weidmann is :).

Oh, I wasn't really serious.

On the Desktop Taskbar clicking on Start\Run\cmd.exe will give you C:\Documents and Settings\Destry>

A command prompt run from within c:\xampp should give you C:\xampp>

Double clicking on a bat file is not recommended but the use of start/run is then cd to the location of your choice.

Ah, of course. I actually knew this. I'm not often in the cp so little things I tend to forget.

Need to sleep. I'll check in tomorrow.

[dwion]

The fog thickens. :)

I think I'll remove everything again and see if I can successfully install my old version. Just to test real quick.

I appreciate your and Wiedmann's help, 3 pages of thread is above and beyond the call of duty. ;) Really wish we could iron this one out though. I'm a freelancer Web designer/writer and move a lot of .sql dumps around. XAMPP is critical for me! Very, very soon I will need to have a more updated version of XAMPP running if I don't want conflict with my various client's different Web hosts (different versions of php, MySQL, etc.). This situation is becoming a bit of a worry.

Another thing I could try, I suppose, is install a new xampp version on my external drive only, and not have one conflicting on my local drive at all. Can I use virtual containers in that case? Virtual containers would be rather important for me to keep my various dev sites organized under the different publishing systems I play with. So for example in the root external drive (W:\) I have dev folders like...

_txp
_drupal
_modx
etc

...which themselves potentially contain several projects (Web sites built with the respective CMS).

[Wiedmann]

Double clicking on a bat file is not recommended

This can be a security risk, that's all. But it's the same as a double click on a exe file. (And he have the same problem with normal Windows (GUI) programs.)

I think I'll remove everything again

You mean Windows with "everything"? That's okay. Removing XAMPP and reinstall ist doesn't help. You know, your problem is not XAMPP, Windows is the problem.

[dwion]

You know, your problem is not XAMPP, Windows is the problem.

I know, but I have a backup of my older, working XAMPP with all of it's paths, etc. I thought I would reinstall that zip and see if there's a difference there compared to a new installation. Better than sitting here doing nothing and getting nowhere.

Reinstalling my hard drive will be a very last effort, that I hope I can avoid.

[dwion]

You know, your problem is not XAMPP, Windows is the problem.

I know ... Better than sitting here doing nothing and getting nowhere.

As you expected, that didn't work, same problem.

So, this means that between two days ago when I could use XAMPP just fine and now after trying to upgrade, something has happened that has changed my ability to work with MySQL. I can still work with Apache just fine, it's only the MySQL that is seemingly unreachable.

The only thing I've done during these last two days, as I have elaborated on before in this thread, is try and install another copy of XAMPP in an external drive, which didn't play nice with the local copy (seemed to be some conflicts of use), and then after that messing around with permissions on a local installed xampp folder (since deleted and reistalled many times). I have not been using any system tweaking tools like Tune-up or whatever.

One more note: When I deleted the xampp folder that I had played around with permissions on, I didn't revert the permission/sharing changes I had made on it beforehand. I just deleted the folder as it was. I don't see how that would influence anything as it was only on that folder, but there it is anyway.

Other than that, I'm stumped, and this sucks. Looks like a reinstall of my OS backup is the next step.

[Wiedmann]

One more question...
start regedit.exe. in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

What is the value of "Userinit"?

[dwion]

Data field reads:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,

(comma included)

[Wiedmann]

OK, that's good.

[dwion]

I've always favored xampp because of it's simplicity of intallation and use, but this is a problem that seems to need a more radical solution. Two such solutions I can think to try are:

1. Reinstall my OS.
2. Do a custom install of Apache-PHP-MySQL, like this.

Theoretically the first one should work as it would take me back to an original state of the OS that seemingly worked. However, that also means reinstalling a LOT of other things that I rely on and...hell...I really don't want to do all that unless it's truly a last resort.

The second is beginning to look like a more favorable choice, and could be an interesting exercise for me anyway. The hanging question, however, is will that actually work. In other words, is the current problem that I'm experiencing now with xampp going to be a problem with individually installed components too? Wiedmann, your expert opinion?

[dwion]

Would prefetch files have anything to do with it?

Rather than yet tackle either of the two options I mentioned in my previous post, I sought insight from my good pal Lou at on2, and decided to try a few more things at his suggestion. I'm not completely done yet, but into the process I've uncovered what seems a bit peculiar.

So far I have:

1. Uninstalled all installations of xampp (both local and external). The idea being that conflicting daemons on one box probably confused Windows.

2. Did three searches on my local drive (c:\) using the three terms: "xampp", "apache", and "mysql". None of my searches turned up anything in the registry, but it did turn up two things worth noting. First was a zipped backup of my old, original installation (the one that used to work) that I had saved in C:\Documents and Settings\(me). The other was five prefetch files in C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch.

The zipped backup might be relevant because of the location. If you recall earlier in this thread, the Control Panel kept searching for mysql in the path C:\Documents and Settings\(me); perhaps it was still pulling from my old installation even though I had zipped and moved it. Don't Know yet.

The Prefetch situatin is curious too because of the file count pattern:

XAMPP-CONTROL.EXE-33600D02.pf
XAMPP-WIN32-1.5.3A.EXE-20A013CA.pf
APACHE.EXE-0C92B452.pf
MYSQLADMIN.EXE-0174290A.pf
MYSQLD.EXE-1E9F6B33.pf

What might be relevant with these files is that there are two instances of the xampp and mysql files wile only one of the apache. Again, as you might recall from before, I could communicate with Apache just fine, it was mysql that I was getting the wrong subshell reading, so maybe the two mysql files represent the conflicting mysql daemons? Don't know.

Anyway, just thought I would throw that out there for feedback. I've deleted those prefetch files and removed the zip. My next steps are to reboot. Reinstall xampp in the local drive using an MD5 version check. Run xampp as a service (Lou says that's better, Windows will like it, and I should not be afraid). And lastly hope for success.

[dwion]

This long story ends happily, ladies and gentlemen. I appear to have put things back to normal, and I'm glad to say it did not require a reinstall of my OS nor a switch to running Apache, PHP, and MySQL as indivindually installed components.

First let me say that the problem was NOT the prefetch files nor the backup zip file as noted in the previous post.

So let me wrap it all up by first restating the problem in simple terms, and then giving the steps to repairing the problem.

THE INITIAL PROBLEM:

Basically, I had a version of xampp that was a few versions too old. I wrongfully decided to try and run a second (new) version in an external drive (via USB) without removing the former. However, you can't do that; you can only have one instance of xampp daemons serving a single machine (or something like that). Windows got very, very confused; it didn't know which install to be functioning with, the subshell got misdirected, and as a result Windows could not locate (communicate) with the MySQL database (it couldn't even find phpMyAdmin). The real problem sign to look for when running msql_start.bat from the command prompt is "Cannont find php cli!". Complete removal and reinstallations of xampp would not fix the problem, and as you can see from this long thread, even Wiedmann was stumped.

I should point out that I did not want to run xampp as a service, but perhaps if I had to begin with this would not be the long ordeal it turned out to be. On to the remedy.

THE REMEDY:

1. Create .sql dump files of your databases for safe keeping.
2. If you had been using Virtual Host Containers that worked, copy the text for those from your http-conf file and save in a text file for reuse later.
3. Completely uninstall xampp (all copies) from your machine (and any connected external drive).
4. Do a system search for "xampp" to see if any xampp-related registry files are hanging around. (I didn't have any.) If you find any, back up your registry first (do it), and then delete the files you find.
5. As noted in the previous post, I found some prefetch files from the old installs at c:\WINDOWS\Prefetch. Might as well delete those too if you have them.
6. Install a new version of xampp in the root drive (c:\), and do the MD5 check to make sure it's good. (I used the 7-zip executable.)
7. Open a command prompt, change directory to root (c:\), and run the following command: xampp\services.exe (I believe this was the magic step that really put things right by reestablishing the proper path to the xampp subshell, or whatever.)
8. However you prefer to do it, open the xampp Control Panel, then click the Settings button. In the path you should see C:\xampp\services.exe. (If you want to run xampp as a service, go ahead and click the appropriate box, but I didn't have to do that to get things working.) Click OK.
9. In the main Control Panel view, you should now be able to start/stop your xampp modules normally (i.e., apache, mysql, etc.). Start them for both Apache and MySQL.
10. Open a Web browser and go to http://localhost. You should see the xampp start page.
11. Click the phpMyAdmin link in the left column. Drumroll please... You should see phpMyAdmin open successfully instead of some good-mood-killing error message.

That's it. From there it's back to configuring xampp as you normally would, setting up your databases, etc.

If this makes it into the wiki (and I hope AF starts an English branch of the wiki for Pete's sake), then it would be nice to give credit for the fix to Destry Wion at wion.com and Lou Quillio at on2.

Thanks, and goodnight.

[Wiedmann]

I appear to have put things back to normal,

I don't think so. Have you ever tried to start Apache with the "apache_start.bat" or tried to execute the "setup_xampp.bat"? Only if this works, all is normal.

But at the moment it's ok for you (and maybe for orthers) because XAMPP works

BTW:
"services.exe" is part of the Control Center. And the CC is a third party application that we have included in the XAMPP package.