The Tech Lab: Completely Remove MySQL on Mac OS X

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Completely Remove MySQL on Mac OS X

I was getting my Mac ready to do some Rails development with a MySQL database and I ran into a problem installing MySQL 5.5.8 on OS X 10.6.5. I downloaded the .DMG and ran through the mysql-5.1.54-osx10.6-x86_64.pkg installer without a problem. However, after installing the server and the MySQL.prefPane I could not start the server from the preference pane. Then I noticed that the installer did not run scripts/mysql_install_db as part of the post installation process. Well my first thought is that I obviously did something wrong so I thought I'd remove MySQL and start over again. So, I did some googling and found these steps to completely remove MySQL:

sudo rm /usr/local/mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/My*
(Edit /etc/hostconfig) sudo vi /etc/hostconfig (Remove line MYSQLCOM=-YES)
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MySQL*
sudo rm -rf /var/db/receipts/com.mysql.*

Apparently the receipts are in a different location for the newer versions of MySQL so line #8 was added to clean them out as well. Remember, these steps will completely remove MySQL and any data residing in the default locations.

So, back to my struggles. I ended up installing MySQL 5.5.8 a couple of times using different archives with the same result so this removal process came in real handy...I almost made a script out of it. After getting pretty frustrated with version 5.5.8 I ended up installing version 5.1.54 without a problem and it is running fine!?!?!

Cheers!

9 comments:

nbarthelemy said...: Thank you so much #8 was what every other post was missing.; January 12, 2011 at 6:06 PM
Pete said...: I got the PreferencePane working by editing/usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server with these values:

basedir=/usr/local/mysql
datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data

So now I could easily start & stop the server, but I could never get the mysql gem to work correctly. It would seem to install correctly, but running 'rake db:migrate' as a test would always return

uninitialized constant MysqlCompat::MysqlRes

I finally gave up & tried installing MySQL 5.1.54 but then ran into the problem that your step #8 fixed. Now MySQL runs fine and the gem installed correctly. So much wasted time....; January 19, 2011 at 9:17 PM
Rod Biresch said...: Pete,
I'm glad to hear that this post help you! I had problems installing the mysql gem. I finally got the gem installed using...

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

Cheers!
Rod; January 20, 2011 at 8:53 AM
Jérôme said...: Thanks Rod for the the step 8, hopefully Google found you! I could uninstall MySQL 5.1 with it.

Thanks Pete for the two lines, they fix well the preference panel and terminal command :)

Note: I didn't install the Automatic startup thing; January 21, 2011 at 3:07 AM
Anonymous said...: this finally works - thanks, you're a great hero!; January 21, 2011 at 2:30 PM
Mike said...: #8 was what was missing in all the other guides.; January 22, 2011 at 8:00 PM
stammtisch said...: THNAK YOU for #8 !!!; March 15, 2011 at 12:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Thanks a lot man!! really helpful and works like a charm; December 7, 2011 at 3:24 AM
ankit goel said...: thanx a lot.. i installed mysql 5.5.28 8 times and couldnt get it to work..finally 5.1 is working great ..; December 15, 2012 at 9:48 AM