MySQL continued

Ok so, after typing all that up and going through a hundred or more forum posts, I was actually still having the same problem of MySQL-Server hanging when I was trying to install.

Fortunately, I documented everything as I found potential solutions, and referenced all of it to fix my problem.

Again, my symptoms were:

• apt (advanced packaging tool) could not complete fresh install of MySQL. It would hang on the line: Setting up MySQL-Server-5.1
• Because apt would freeze, I would have to force close, which would give me /var/lib/dpkg/lock issues, aka error: "Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock"
• Any attempt to purge/remove MySQL would end erroneously, either because of missing dependencies, or other errors. 
• If I was able to trick MySQL into kind of finishing install, I would receive the error: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)'

To solve these problems:

Problem #1: apt (advanced packaging tool) could not complete fresh install of MySQL. It would hang on the line: Setting up MySQL-Server-5.1

Solution: I found that if I went into a new terminal tab while that was "setting up" and typed in:

  service mysql stop

It allowed the install to complete.

Problem #2: Because apt would freeze, I would have to force close, which would give me /var/lib/dpkg/lock issues, aka error: "Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock"

Solution: First command I would type in: 

sudo fuser -vki /var/lib/dpkg/lock

Then, I entered every command verbatim (including the prefix LANG=C;) from Ubuntu's Help Site (Step 5):

sudo fuser -vvv /var/lib/dpkg/lock

cat /etc/lsb-release

uname -a

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock 

sudo cp -arf /var/lib/dpkg /var/lib/dpkg.backup

sudo cp /var/lib/dpkg/status-old /var/lib/dpkg/status

sudo cp /var/lib/dpkg/available-old /var/lib/dpkg/available

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/dpkg/updates/*

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists

sudo rm /var/cache/apt/*.bin

sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists

sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists/partial

LANG=C;sudo apt-get clean

LANG=C;sudo apt-get autoclean

LANG=C;sudo apt-get --purge autoremove

LANG=C;sudo apt-get update -o APT::Cache-Limit=25165824

sudo dpkg --configure -a

sudo dpkg --clear-avail

LANG=C;sudo apt-get -f install

LANG=C;sudo apt-get --fix-missing install

LANG=C;sudo apt-get update -o APT::Cache-Limit=25165824 && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This cleared up my apt-get/dpkg issues, including partially installed packages.

Problem #3: Any attempt to purge/remove MySQL would end erroneously, either because of missing dependencies, or other errors. 

Solution: Perform the previous step before you go here. 

First I kill any mysql process, check: 

ps -e | grep mysql

And make sure mysql/mysqld is not running. Then:

apt-get --purge autoremove mysql-common

apt-get --purge autoremove mysql-server

In addition to this, I deleted /var/lib/mysql, because that appeared to contain some user information and configuration files that were overlapping into the "fresh installs". I did a locate mysql and looked around at some of the folders and deleted any that I thought contained configuration files or user info. 

Problem #4: If I was able to trick MySQL into kind of finishing install, I would receive the error: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)'

Solution: As long as you delete /var/lib/mysql, purge all MySQL packages and perform a fresh install, you should no longer receive this error. Just make sure your mysqld (MySQL daemon) service is running and your /etc/my.cnf file is pointing to the right location. But, since you theoretically did a fresh install, the default my.cnf settings should be correct and working, they were for me.

Good luck.