Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB | MySQL Ubuntu

Question

I recently upgraded from the previous LTS Ubuntu to Precise and now mysql refuses to start. It complains of the following when I attempt to start it:

╰$ sudo service mysql restart
stop: Unknown instance:
start: Job failed to start

And this shows in "/var/log/mysql/error.log":

120415 23:01:09 [Note] Plugin 'InnoDB' is disabled.
120415 23:01:09 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
120415 23:01:09 [ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB
120415 23:01:09 [ERROR] Aborting

120415 23:01:09 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete

I've checked permissions on all the mysql directories to make sure it had ownership and I also renamed the previou ib_logs so that it could remake them. I'm just getting no where with this issue right now, after looking at google results for 2 hours.

Answer 1

After checking the logs I found the following error:

[ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB

I removed these files:

rm /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile0
rm /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile1 

at /var/lib/mysql

This resolved my problem after restart.

Answer 2

If you really need skip-innodb (use case: low memory footprint), then of course you don't have to comment it out. However, if InnoDB is the default storage engine, the server will fail to start until you tell it which storage engine to use instead, e.g. default-storage-engine=myisam for MyISAM.

So, try this:

$ sudo -u mysql mysqld --skip-innodb --default-storage-engine=myisam

Answer 3

If you're using MySQL 5.6+ and want to disable InnoDB, don't forget "--default-tmp-storage" or it won't work:

To disable InnoDB, use --innodb=OFF or --skip-innodb. In this case, because the default storage engine is InnoDB, the server will not start unless you also use --default-storage-engine and --default-tmp-storage-engine to set the default to some other engine for both permanent and TEMPORARY tables.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/innodb-parameters.html#option_mysqld_ignore-builtin-innodb

You can add this to your my.cnf:

[mysqld] 
innodb=OFF 
ignore-builtin-innodb 
skip-innodb
default-storage-engine=myisam 
default-tmp-storage-engine=myisam

just to make sure it'll work.

Answer 4

Check your mysql error log.

tail -100 /var/log/mysql/error.log

If your log says (like mine did):

InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
InnoDB: mmap(137363456 bytes) failed; errno 12
[ERROR] InnoDB: Cannot allocate memory for the buffer pool

You don't have enough memory to use the default buffer size of 128M

Edit the config file /etc/mysql/my.cnf adding a line to specify a smaller innodb_buffer_pool_size.

# make the buffer pool smaller than 128M since we only have 1 GB of total RAM
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 16M

Save the config file, and start mysql

sudo service mysql start

Answer 5

I got this error when I deleted the location I use for tmpdir. If you've recently changed your tmpdir, you might want to check that it's a valid, writable location.

Answer 6

I got this error on a modern MariaDB 10.5 system, because I forgot to units on the innodb control lines;

innodb_buffer_pool_size = 4096
innodb_log_file_size    = 1024

instead of

innodb_buffer_pool_size = 4096MB
innodb_log_file_size    = 1024MB

So, if you get this one, check there

Answer 7

Check that you have enough free space on the disk.

Run this command to view available free space

df -h

I had this same error message but, once I provisioned more space mysql service was able to start normally

Answer 8

I had this problem, when reloading the /var/lib/mysql/ folder into a fresh install of Debian 12.

I had to remove the logfile with

mv /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile0 /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile0-bak

and create a new empty file with

echo ""> /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile0

Now the service starts, but you see a lot of errors like

Aug 30 15:15:31 test mariadbd[40673]: 2023-08-30 15:15:31 0 [ERROR] InnoDB: Page [page id: space=9154, page number=3] log sequence number 258766592934 is in the future! Current system log sequence number 254569578017.
Aug 30 15:15:31 test mariadbd[40673]: 2023-08-30 15:15:31 0 [ERROR] InnoDB: Your database may be corrupt or you may have copied the InnoDB tablespace but not the InnoDB log files. Please refer to https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/innodb-recovery-modes/ for information about forcing recovery.

I use 10.11.3-MariaDB, so I guess, I have to set in /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

[mariadb]
innodb_force_recovery=4

(or a higher value if 4 won't suffice)

Then restart with

systemctl restart mysql 

Answer 9

Try 2 more things. 1. Lower the innodb buffer pool size. 2. Edit mysql initial script and add --innodb option.

I wonder also if your package is buggy. Could you try a different minor version?

Also, I assume your mysql server got upgraded as well? Maybe that version is broken? Precise is not final yet.