One question I often get is how one can find out queries which should be optimized. By looking at pt-query-digest report it is easy to find slow queries or queries which cause the large portion of the load on the system but how do we know whenever there is any possibility to make this query [...]
On Character Sets and Disappearing Tables
The MySQL manual tells us that regardless of whether or not we use “SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0″ before making schema changes, InnoDB will not allow a column referenced by a foreign key constraint to be modified in such a way that the foreign key will reference a column with a mismatched data type. For instance, if we [...]
Hijacking Innodb Foreign Keys
I guess I’m first to post in 2012 so Happy New Year all blog readers ! Now back to HardCore MySQL business – foreign Keys. MySQL supported Foreign Keys for Innodb for many years, yet rudimentary support initially added in MySQL 3.23.44 have not been improved in new releases as much as I’d like. We [...]
Identifying the load with the help of pt-query-digest and Percona Server
Overview Profiling, analyzing and then fixing queries is likely the most oft-repeated part of a job of a DBA and one that keeps evolving, as new features are added to the application new queries pop up that need to be analyzed and fixed. And there are not too many tools out there that can make [...]
When Does InnoDB Update Table Statistics? (And When It Can Bite)
An InnoDB table statistics is used for JOIN optimizations and helping the MySQL optimizer choose the appropriate index for a query. If a table’s statistics or index cardinality becomes outdated, you might see queries which previously performed well suddenly show up on slow query log until InnoDB again updates the statistics. But when does InnoDB [...]
More on MySQL Error Messages
I wrote about MySQL Error Messages before and as you might guess I’m not very happy with quality for error messages it produces. Now I’m revisiting this subject with couple of more annoying examples I ran into during last couple of days.
1 2 | mysql> drop database test; ERROR 1010 (HY000): Error dropping database (can't rmdir './test/', errno: 17) |
Debugging problems with row based replication
MySQL 5.1 introduces row based binary logging. In fact, the default binary logging format in GA versions of MySQL 5.1 is ‘MIXED’ STATEMENT*; The binlog_format variable can still be changed per sessions which means it is possible that some of your binary log entries will be written in a row-based fashion instead of the [...]
Recovering CREATE TABLE statement from .frm file
So lets say you have .frm file for the table and you need to recover CREATE TABLE statement for this table. In particular when we do Innodb Recovery we often get .frm files and some mess in the Innodb tablespace from which we have to get data from. Of course we could relay on old [...]
Can MySQL temporary tables be made safe for statement-based replication?
A while ago I wrote about how to make MySQL replication reliable, part of which is to eliminate temporary tables. The idea is this: if a slave is stopped (or crashed) while a temporary table is open and is then restarted, the temporary table doesn’t exist anymore, and the slave will have problems trying to [...]
MySQL Error Message Nonsenses
What MySQL honestly was never good at is giving good helpful error messages. Start with basics for example – The error message in case of syntax error gives you information about tokens near by but little details:
1 2 | mysql> select * from user oder by pwd; ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'by pwd' at line 1 |
It would be much better if MySQL would give error give exact position of error (with complex [...]

