Mariadb failed to start again [solved]

Question

mariadb is not starting, or restarting. 
i have poured over topics, tried a few things, but not really sure where to go next.
$ journalctl -xn
-- Logs begin at Fri 2014-09-19 23:05:01 PDT, end at Sun 2014-10-26 15:07:23 PDT. --
Oct 26 15:05:53 falcon systemd[1]: mysqld.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 26 15:05:53 falcon mysqld[971]: 141026 15:05:53 [ERROR] Aborting
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon systemd[1]: mysqld.service start-post operation timed out. Stopping.
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon systemd[1]: Failed to start MariaDB database server.
-- Subject: Unit mysqld.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
-- Unit mysqld.service has failed.
-- The result is failed.
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon systemd[1]: Unit mysqld.service entered failed state.
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon systemd[1]: Cannot add dependency job for unit zfs.service, ignoring: Unit zfs.service failed to load: No such file or directory.
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon systemd[1]: Cannot add dependency job for unit swat.socket, ignoring: Unit swat.socket failed to load: No such file or directory.
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon mysqld[1606]: 141026 15:07:23 [ERROR] /usr/bin/mysqld: ambiguous option '--u' (user, use_stat_tables)
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon mysqld[1606]: 141026 15:07:23 [ERROR] Aborting
Oct 26 15:07:23 falcon systemd[1]: mysqld.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
$ systemctl status mysqld.service
* mysqld.service - MariaDB database server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mysqld.service; enabled)
Active: activating (start-post) (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2014-10-26 14:58:07 PDT; 15s ago
Process: 9807 ExecStart=/usr/bin/mysqld --pid-file=/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 9807 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE); : 9808 (mysqld-post)
CGroup: /system.slice/mysqld.service
`-control
|-9808 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld-post
`-9920 sleep 1
Oct 26 14:58:07 falcon mysqld[9807]: 141026 14:58:07 [ERROR] /usr/bin/mysqld: ambiguous option '--u' (user, use_stat_tables)
Oct 26 14:58:07 falcon mysqld[9807]: 141026 14:58:07 [ERROR] Aborting
Oct 26 14:58:07 falcon systemd[1]: mysqld.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2 "No such file or directory")
$ mysql_install_db --user=mysql --ldata=/var/lib/mysql/
FATAL ERROR: Could not find ./share/mysql/fill_help_tables.sql
If you compiled from source, you need to run 'make install' to
copy the software into the correct location ready for operation.
If you are using a binary release, you must either be at the top
level of the extracted archive, or pass the --basedir option
pointing to that location.
The latest information about mysql_install_db is available at
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/installing-system-tables-mysql_install_db
i looked in /var/log and im not seeing anything related to mysql, no file with the name mysql, and no folder either...   so i looked in my.cnf, saw it was pointing to /var/log/mysqld.log, so i created this file, chowned it to mysql:mysql, chmod 770, and i still cant restart it.  (i havent rebooted since i created the log file, do i need to?)
i do see it saying something about
ambiguous option '--u'
, is that the problem?
any suggestions on how to dig out more info here so i can figure out whats going on?
Last edited by wolfdogg (2014-10-26 22:22:12)

Answer 1

crap, in my mysql conf file, i found the
u
, it was here
u# table_open_cache = 64
where that came from i have no idea.  it restarted RIGHT away just after that
$ systemctl start mysqld
$ systemctl status mysqld.service
* mysqld.service - MariaDB database server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mysqld.service; enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sun 2014-10-26 15:19:33 PDT; 1min 47s ago
Process: 6659 ExecStartPost=/usr/bin/mysqld-post (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 6658 (mysqld)
CGroup: /system.slice/mysqld.service
`-6658 /usr/bin/mysqld --pid-file=/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
Oct 26 15:19:27 falcon mysqld[6658]: 141026 15:19:27 [Warning] /usr/bin/mysqld: ignoring option '--character-set-client-handshake' due to invalid value 'utf8'
Oct 26 15:19:27 falcon mysqld[6658]: 141026 15:19:27 [Warning] option 'max_heap_table_size': unsigned value 0 adjusted to 16384
Oct 26 15:19:27 falcon mysqld[6658]: 141026 15:19:27 [Warning] Changed limits: max_open_files: 1024 max_connections: 214 table_cache: 400