Question

MySQL on Ubuntu Keeps Crashing

Posted June 17, 2013 84.2k views
I've got an Ubuntu 12.x Droplet running, and for some reason MySQL keeps crashing to where I need to go in and restart the process ('sudo service mysql restart'). I'm not even sure how to start debugging this - could anyone give me some guidance on how to start? My MySQL logs are empty in /var/log/ Thanks!
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25 answers
juanbrujo June 6, 2015

Finally this helped, none of other solution did any change (add swap, monitor for banned iP’s, upgrade droplet):

## Edit /etc/my.cnf, and add the following line under the [mysqld] heading.
[mysqld]
innodb_buffer_pool_size=64M

Then restart: $ service mysql restart

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  • rreboto November 24, 2015

    I configured mine to be 32M and it’s not crashed since; thanks!

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  • rochak10 January 21, 2016

    Hi,
    I just put this line in. Can you advise that 64M can be given in the basic 512MB server? Will that cause an issue or should I put 32M like suggested below?

    thx

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  • lynne April 6, 2016

    Thanks @juanbrujo. I have followed your advice and time will tell if it works. But one good indication was that I got this in my error log for mysql (located for me at /var/log/mysql/error.log (or one of the older zipped logs if logrotate is working))

    160405 2:12:52 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
    160405 2:12:52 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
    160405 2:12:52 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.8
    160405 2:12:52 InnoDB: Using Linux native AIO
    160405 2:12:52 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
    InnoDB: mmap(137363456 bytes) failed; errno 12
    160405 2:12:52 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
    160405 2:12:52 InnoDB: Fatal error: cannot allocate memory for the buffer pool
    160405 2:12:52 [ERROR] Plugin ‘InnoDB’ init function returned error.
    160405 2:12:52 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB’ registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed.
    160405 2:12:52 [ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB
    160405 2:12:52 [ERROR] Aborting

    After adding the innodb_buffer_pool_size=64M as suggested I still get this line in my log

    160405 20:09:05 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled

    but the other error, i.e. Fatal “error: cannot allocate memory for the buffer pool” and “Plugin 'InnoDB’ registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed.” have not yet raised their heads.

    Looks like I can add this line to my.cnf to get rid of that error:

    innodb_use_sys_malloc = 0

    from here: https://xuri.me/2014/11/10/fix-error-innodb-the-innodb-memory-heap-is-disabled.html

    but not sure If i need to do this yet

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  • Stew May 8, 2016

    OK i will try, keep in touch....

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  • vritzka May 18, 2016

    for me, that file is located in /etc/mysql/my.conf

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kamaln7 June 17, 2013
MySQL could be running out of memory - try adding swap to your droplet:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-add-swap-on-centos-6
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-add-swap-on-ubuntu-12-04
How To Add Swap on Ubuntu 12.04
by Etel Sverdlov
Linux swaps allow a system to harness more memory than was originally physically available. Here's how to set up a linux swap file on Ubuntu 12.04
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ryan.burnette January 9, 2014
One rule of thumb I use when configuring a droplet with MySQL is I get all my processes running, then use top or landscape-sysinfo to see how much memory is free. Then I divide my free memory in half, that number is usually about 8-10M. Then I set the InnoDB buffer size to that amount to avoid having MySQL use up too much memory. This has cleared up 99% of my problems with MySQL crashing.
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 10M

It can also help to use swap space, but it's best to increase the size of your droplet as it degrades Digital Ocean's hardware to use swap.
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chasepettit December 13, 2014

This is a pretty common issue with WordPress, certainly not the fault of the DO preconfigured instance as I’ve experienced the same spinning up my own DO instances as well as back when I used to use AWS EC2. Moving up to an instance with more memory may help temporarily, but you’ll likely still eventually come face to face with this issue.

My sites will typically work flawlessly for several months until eventually they start to become plagued with MySQL crashes. My solution almost always ends up being spinning up a new instance and migrating over where the 2-4 month cycle just repeats itself. I’ve yet to be able to pin down the root cause or a solution.

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Contex June 17, 2013
grep for "OOM" in /var/log/syslog & /var/log/dmesg, it's usually a out of memory issue.
You might want to optimize your configuration as well, take a look at MySQLTuner: http://mysqltuner.com
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nhatkhoa August 11, 2013
i've got the same issue like your with a 512mb ram droplet

after adding a 512mb swap to my droplet the SQL crash seem like went away
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info186785 August 12, 2013
Thanks. I was having the same problem - we'll see if this resolves the issue. Also. Can you give me an example of grepping for "OOM" in /var/log/syslog specifically?
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mickael23 September 19, 2013
Adding swap to your droplet (first comment) solving this problem.
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waqas464 November 28, 2013
i have added a 512 swap but face the same issue, my swap is on but is it possible that its not working fine?
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kamaln7 November 28, 2013
@waqas464: Check MySQL's error logs to see why it's crashing.
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don November 30, 2013
I am glad I came across this question as I am having the same problem! I am on the same setup as nhatkhoa. It was based off of your MySQL image when I created the droplet. I added swap, and made a few adjustments based on an answer at StackExchange (http://stackoverflow.com/a/17251878/1386201).

It seems like those two things made mysql less prone to crash, but I can still do it if I load 16 tabs at once pulling from each of my sites using mysql.

I have the last several lines of output from my error log that I have posted to dropbox, so that I don't muck up this thread. That can be read at https://www.dropbox.com/s/141i0czf5dsyuwm/mysql.errorlog.txt

Any thoughts Kamal? Thanks in advance for your help.
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kamaln7 November 30, 2013
@Don: Try repairing the tables: mysql is marked as crashed and should be repaired
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don December 6, 2013
Hmm. I had already done that. It doesn't seem to clear up those lines. Still keeps crashing. I have even tried switching my tables to InnoDB, but no luck.
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info145072 December 20, 2013
I'm having the same issue with wordpress installs, could be strange characters being injected by spammers (not sure if this is a problem or not)
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wintura December 25, 2013
Same issue to me. Can't find the solution yet :(
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wintura December 25, 2013
Same issue to me. Can't find the solution yet :(
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margarita.lukjanska March 2, 2014
Had the same issue on the droplet of 512Mb RAM and solved it only by upgrading to 1Gb
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artofeclipse April 19, 2014
I just fixed it by adding a new swap file, I hope this will fix the issue for someone else, mine issue was caused by misconfiguration during the installation process, here is the link for the instruction :

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-add-a-swap-file-howto/

cheers.
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jay698479 June 26, 2014

I’ve added a swap file but it keeps crashing. Any idea how to find out why it is happening or how to fix it?

Thanks

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limkopi78 August 29, 2014

MySQL instance used to crash once every few months. Lately there was a lot of attempted login on my Wordpress instance and crashes the DB every 2-3 days.

Now I try to restart the DB only to see it eating up all the memory within a minute. I have 1 GB RAM and added 2 GB swap and it runs out of memory in less than 5 mins when I start the DB.

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fersemo October 27, 2014

I still have the same problem. Did someone definitely solve this issue?

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pcproffitt April 4, 2015

I’ve had this MySQL problem on several droplets. All are Ubuntu 14.04 at present and were originally set up as Wordpress instances. However, I don’t use them for Wordpress, so deleting the Wordpress part of the droplet is the first thing I do. This is just for reference.

Initially through this and similar community posts I set up a swap file on each system. But, that never solved my problem on any droplet.

In each instance to date that I’ve had this MySQL problem I’ve found that there were MySQL tables that were marked as crashed. Once I ran mysqlcheck to resolve the crash indications it seems I no longer am having problems.

Hope this is helpful.

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aubreypwd October 23, 2015

I had about 3-4 days of continual mysql crashes, but props to @juanbrujo, his solution seems to have helped.

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vritzka May 18, 2016
[deleted]
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vritzka May 18, 2016

This may be a brute force attack on the wordpress xmlrpc.php.

This was the case for me,

see this: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/unsolveable-epic-mysql-crashes-with-wordpress

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