How can I get MySQL to work on OSX?

Question

I have MySQL installed on OSX Mavericks via homebrew. I was getting the following error message:

ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file (/usr/local/var/mysql/jamess-air.config.pid)

Whenever I tried a mysql.server restart, so I uninstalled and then reinstalled MySQL using homebrew. However, I'm still getting the same error message whenever I attempt to run the server.

/usr/local/var/mysql/jamess-air.config.pid doesn't exist. My my.cnf is at /etc and looks like this:

#
# The MySQL database server configuration file.
#
# You can copy this to one of:
# - "/etc/mysql/my.cnf" to set global options,
# - "~/.my.cnf" to set user-specific options.
# 
# One can use all long options that the program supports.
# Run program with --help to get a list of available options and with
# --print-defaults to see which it would actually understand and use.
#
# For explanations see
# http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/server-system-variables.html

# This will be passed to all mysql clients
# It has been reported that passwords should be enclosed with 
# ticks/quotes escpecially if they contain "#" chars...
# Remember to edit /etc/mysql/debian.cnf when changing 
# the socket location.
[client]
port        = 3306
#socket     = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

# Here is entries for some specific programs
# The following values assume you have at least 32M ram

# This was formally known as [safe_mysqld]. Both versions 
# are currently parsed.
[mysqld_safe]
#socket     = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
#nice       = 0

[mysqld]
#
# * Basic Settings
#

#
# * IMPORTANT
#   If you make changes to these settings and your system uses 
#   apparmor, you may also need to also adjust 
#   /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.mysqld.
#

#user       = mysql
#socket     = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
port        = 3306
#basedir    = /usr
#datadir    = /var/lib/mysql
#tmpdir     = /tmp
skip-external-locking
#
# Instead of skip-networking the default is now to listen only on
# localhost which is more compatible and is not less secure.
bind-address        = 127.0.0.1
#
# * Fine Tuning
#
key_buffer          = 16M
max_allowed_packet  = 16M
thread_stack        = 192K
thread_cache_size   = 8
# This replaces the startup script and checks MyISAM tables if needed
# the first time they are touched
myisam-recover         = BACKUP
#max_connections       = 100
#table_cache           = 64
#thread_concurrency    = 10
#
# * Query Cache Configuration
#
query_cache_limit   = 1M
query_cache_size    = 16M
#
# * Logging and Replication
#
# Both location gets rotated by the cronjob.
# Be aware that this log type is a performance killer.
# As of 5.1 you can enable the log at runtime!
#general_log_file        = /var/log/mysql/mysql.log
#general_log             = 1

log_error                = /var/log/mysql/error.log

# Here you can see queries with especially long duration
#log_slow_queries   = /var/log/mysql/mysql-slow.log
#long_query_time = 2
#log-queries-not-using-indexes
#
# The following can be used as easy to replay backup logs or 
# for replication.
# note: if you are setting up a replication slave, see 
#       README.Debian about other settings you may need 
#       to change.
#server-id          = 1
#log_bin            = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log
expire_logs_days    = 10
max_binlog_size     = 100M
#binlog_do_db       = include_database_name
#binlog_ignore_db   = include_database_name
#
# * InnoDB
#
# InnoDB is enabled by default with a 10MB datafile in /var/lib/mysql/.
# Read the manual for more InnoDB related options. There are many!
#
# * Security Features
#
# Read the manual, too, if you want chroot!
# chroot = /var/lib/mysql/
#
# For generating SSL certificates I recommend the OpenSSL GUI "tinyca".
#
# ssl-ca=/etc/mysql/cacert.pem
# ssl-cert=/etc/mysql/server-cert.pem
# ssl-key=/etc/mysql/server-key.pem

# Query Caching
query-cache-type = 1

# Default to InnoDB
default-storage-engine=innodb

[mysqldump]
quick
quote-names
max_allowed_packet  = 16M

[mysql]
#no-auto-rehash # faster start of mysql but no tab completition

[isamchk]
key_buffer      = 16M

This wasn't provided by the Homebrew install of MySQL, so I took it from http://blog.joefallon.net/2013/10/install-mysql-on-mac-osx-using-homebrew/

I've checked out posts in various forums about this, but following the steps there doesn't seem to solve my problem. What's happening here, and how should I go about fixing it?

Edited with respect to @Cătălin Stan's answer below

Answer 1

Okay, it seems that this was a permissions issue, but a different one to that described by @Cătălin Stan.

I was (incorrectly, as I now understand) using brew with sudo, probably because I was getting permission issues when I tried to brew install anything. However, it seems that brew is supposed to run without sudo. Doing this eventually led me to

Homebrew install issues

and alerted me to the fact that I might have permission and/or ownership issues effecting brew. Running sudo chown -Rwhoami/Library/Caches/Homebrew/ fixed these, and MySQL installed perfectly.

Answer 2

This usually is a matter of permissions.

1. Check your my.cnf file to see the user mysqld runs under
2. Check the prmissions on the paths that mysql need to use
3. 'tail -f' on mysql's error log (typically found in the data dir) hopefully this will yield some info.

On a sidenote, Myslq themselves have a pretty well packaged installaer for OSX available for download. It even comes with a preference pane so that you can start and stop it from there.

Hope this helps.