Ubuntu 15.10

Hi,

What exactly do you run to install MariaDB server – is it apt-get, or dpkg, or anything else, and with which parameters? Please paste the exact command line, and, even better, the full unabridged output till the moment of failure.

Please also run dpkg -l | grep -iE 'mysql|maria' and paste its output.

I'm using apt-get with the command: sudo apt-get install mariadb-server
I've previously had a installation of MariaDB on this server in Galera mode (version 10.1.12, but it crashed during the installation. I decided to remove all MariaDB and MySQL items with the sudo apt-get remove --purge command to try a reinstall but ever since it keeps giving me the same error.

The output of dpkg -l | grep -iE 'mysql|maria' is:
ic mariadb-server-10.1 10.1.13+maria-1~wily amd64 MariaDB database server binaries
rc php5-mysql 5.6.11+dfsg-1ubuntu3.1 amd64 MySQL module for php5
rc php5-mysqlnd 5.6.11+dfsg-1ubuntu3.1 amd64 MySQL module for php5 (Native Driver)
rc phpmyadmin 4:4.4.13.1-1 all MySQL web administration tool

Did you try apt-get install -f? If the previous installation crashed in the process, there might have been some inconsistency left.
If it doesn't help, please run

ls -l /etc/init.d/mysql*

sudo systemctl status mysql

sudo systemctl status mariadb

– what does it say?

Also, in order to try to reproduce the problem, I would like to know more about this:

I've previously had a installation of MariaDB on this server in Galera mode (version 10.1.12, but it crashed during the installation.

First, what do you mean by MariaDB installation in Galera mode? In 10.1, Galera and regular server are same packages. You could have had a Galera-specific configuration if it was already installed, but since it crashed upon installation, you didn't have a chance to configure it as a Galera mode. So, what was it?
Secondly, do you have anything left from that crash – stack trace, error messages, logs?..

Thanks.

I've previously tried the -f command but it wouldn't help.

The output of those commands is:

ls -l /etc/init.d/mysql*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5742 mrt 24 10:12 /etc/init.d/mysql

sudo systemctl status mysql:
● mysql.service
Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)
Active: inactive (dead)

sudo systemctl status mariadb:
● mariadb.service
Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)
Active: inactive (dead)
Warning: mariadb.service changed on disk. Run 'systemctl daemon-reload' to reload units.

I've tried the suggested systemctl daemon-reload (as root), but the output remains the same.

First, what do you mean by MariaDB installation in Galera mode?

I mean that I had 3 servers in a Galera cluster (I enabled the configuration) when I tried updating this server (from 10.1.12 > 10.1.13) it wouldn't startup again. (Unfortunately I don't have the error message or log from that problem) I decided to try a reinstall to fix it, but it wouldn't install any more. Because it keeps giving the above error message about MySQL running (which it isn't). Looks to me like it's stuck somewhere in a limbo state between being uninstalled and not.

I later found out that temporarily removing the gcomm.addresses for the cluster config (effectively disabling the cluster) allowed the other servers to upgrade. Not sure why this was needed, because if I recall correctly, when I upgraded from 10.1.11 > 10.1.12 I didn't make any configuration changes and was able to upgrade without taking the cluster offline.

Yes, the culprit here is the /etc/init.d/mysql script, which should have been removed when you uninstalled the server, but somehow survived (normally it does not happen, I've checked). Please try to remove it manually and install the server again.

Works fine now, thank you for the assistance

I did notice a small bug, when setting up the server and using a password that contains the " character there will be an error:

2016-03-30 23:03:59 140099320735744 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
ERROR: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 'ABCDE") WHERE user='root';' at line 1

The part ABCDE is the part of the password after the " character, I assume the script has the " character in it when making the SQL query, but hasn't been designed to have passwords that contain it. Hence why it's cut off to early and an error shows. I've seen this bug before, it's reproducible. Should I open a bug report for this one or is it a known issue?

Please open a bug report about the password issue, I don't remember it being reported before.

For the initial problem, it would be useful to find out why it happened, most likely there is a bug in there.
You mentioned earlier that you uninstalled the server with sudo apt-get remove --purge, but what was the argument?

I think I ran sudo apt-get remove mariadb-server --purge first.
That didn't remove all the packages, so I ran the same command but replacing mariadb-server with any of the remaining mariadb and mysql packages.

Did you have any MySQL installation prior to MariaDB which you were removing?

Please comment to re-open if you have more information on the issue