MySQL stops working from time to time

Question

I have a droplet with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Apache, PHP, MySQL and Wordpress set up. Everything works flawlessly for a few days or weeks. But then, I check my sites and the browser says: “Error establishing a database connection”. Then I log in to the droplet, restart the system via console and everything goes back to normal. Everything works fine for a few days and then, out of nowhere, the same error happens: “Error establishing a database connection”, when trying to access the sites. I guess it’s something related to MySQL. Why does it happen? And how can I fix it and prevent it from happening for good, so the sites will work properly without the need of manually reseting the server from time to time?

Bobby · Answer

Hey! It sounds like that your server might be running low on RAM and the MySQL service might be getting killed. I could suggest a few things here: You could do is use the MySQLTuner script . Here is a quick tutorial on how to use it: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/how-to-tweak-mysql-mariadb-configuration-for-increased-performance-and-stability You can also add a Swap file so that you could have some extra memory buffer in case that your server runs out of RAM: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorial-collections/how-to-add-swap-space And finally you should also consider adding more RAM to the server as well. Let me know how it goes! Best, Bobby

KFSys · Answer

Heya @renatov , It sounds like you MySQL gets killed due to insufficient RAM. Apart from what has been mentioned, I would suggest for you to check/add SWAP https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorial-collections/how-to-add-swap-space Swap is a portion of hard drive storage that has been set aside for the operating system to temporarily store data that it can no longer hold in RAM. This lets you increase the amount of information that your server can keep in its working memory, with some caveats. The swap space on the hard drive will be used mainly when there is no longer sufficient space in RAM to hold in-use application data. While you tune your MySQL as well. If you are still experiencing the same issue, then upgrading your Droplet will be your next step.

alexdo · Answer

I will definitely recommend you to add a swap file if you haven’t done this yet and also use the MySQL tuner script and see if the MySQL configuration needs an improvement. You can also create a simple bash script to check if MySQL is running and if not to restart it. #!/bin/bash # Check if MySQL is running sudo service mysql status > /dev/null 2>&1 # Restart the MySQL service if it's not running. if [ $? != 0 ]; then sudo service mysql restart fi Run this script every 5 minutes using a cron job like this one: */5 * * * * /home/user/scripts/monitor.sh > /dev/null 2>&1 Hope that this helps!

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