the serveice mysql_MySQL: Starting MySQL….. ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file

This step-by-step guide is mainly for FreeBSD, however the idea is the same for Linux. Every once a while, when I update my FreeBSD box, the system likes to shutdown my MySQL server. Therefore, I need to start it again after the update is done. Unfortunately, the upgrade process is not smooth every time. Sometimes it will throw me some error.

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql.server start

Oh well, I got the following error messages:

Starting MySQL..... ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file.

Sometimes, the message will tell you the exact location of which PID file:

Starting MySQL..... ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file (/var/db/mysql/www.icesquare.com.pid).

There are several solutions to troubleshoot these problems. I will go over each one by one.

Solution 1: Reboot The Computer

Although it sounds simple, but it really works. During the system upgrade, the OS may d