Cpanel / WHM – Couldn’t find MySQL manager or server or missing mysql.sock or missing hostname.pid

March 13th, 2008 by Oliver - Tagged with CPanel, MySQL, WHM - Posted in Web Platforms

We have just leased a nice new dedicate box to run a few high-hit ecommerce sites. Our new dedicated servers are usually pre-loaded with WHM/Cpanel (Cuts ttl) as was the case with this one.

We recieved confirmation that the server had been setup and was live and proceeded to re-configure it for the specific sites. WHM installs MySQL as default, however upon checking the service statuses and before killing & disabling all of the unused services I noticed that MySQL(5) wasn’t running. Strange?! So I then try and restart the service which then fails to start with a message complaining that it was unable to find the mysql.sock file.

I proceeded to check the system for the file with no avail. I ‘Googled’ the issue and found lots of fixes around the issue, involving re-installing MySQL, moving files, changing permissions, etc. None of which worked. A common one however (just for reference) was the servers /tmp permissons not being set to write.

The method that worked for me (and is a hell of a lot quicker to try than the rest) was renaming the /etc/my.cnf file to /etc/my.cnf.old and then trying to start the MySQL server. The server then regenerates the /etc/my.cnf file with the correct settings which (has since) solved three MySQL errors I have faced:

1) Couldn’t find MySQL manager or server (Error upon trying to start the service)

2)Certain errors that report missing mysql.sock

3) Certain errors that report missing hostname.pid (replacing hostname with your servers acutal hostname)