Quit MySQL without it restarting on El Capitan

Question

I'm running OS X 10.11 El Capitan with its built-in server stack (Apache 2.4.16, MySQL 5.6.26).

I need to quit mysql, but killing the process immediately restarts it.

Here's what I've tried so far:

---

Killing the process

$ ps aux | grep mysql to get the PID returns

74 49484     1   0 10:23AM ??         0:00.46 /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld --user=_mysql --basedir=/usr/local/mysql --datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data --plugin-dir=/usr/local/mysql/lib/plugin --log-error=/usr/local/mysql/data/mysqld.local.err --pid-file=/usr/local/mysql/data/mysqld.local.pid --port=3307

Then, $ sudo kill -9 49484 kills the process, but it immediately restarts with with a higher PID.

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Unloading mysqld from launchd

$ launchctl list | grep mysql returns nothing, so there is nothing to $ launchctl unload

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Stopping the mysql server

$ /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop fails with "ERROR! MySQL server PID file could not be found!" despite the fact that mysql is running and the PID file is up-to-date in /usr/local/mysql/data/mysqld.local.pid.

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The above are all suggested solutions I found on Stack Overflow, none of which work for me on El Capitan. On Yosemite, simply killing the process was sufficient but with the El Capitan update, mysql is immediately restarted.

Thanks.

Answer 1

What finally worked for me was stopping MySQL through the Mac System Preferences interface. That killed mysql without it coming back.

Answer 2

On macOS Sierra, this worked for me

Stop MySQL:

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist

Start MySQL:

launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist

Answer 3

On OS X El Capitan, this worked for me:

sudo launchctl unload -F /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.oracle.oss.mysql.mysqld.plist

Answer 4

I found that the following commands worked for me:

To Stop mysql:

sudo launchctl unload -F /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist

To Start mysql:

sudo launchctl load -F /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist

Answer 5

On my config I found this:

$ cat /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true />
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.mysql.mysqld</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe</string>
      <string>--user=mysql</string>
    </array>
  </dict>
</plist>

You need to: change that true tag after KeepAlive to false and unload the daemon as others have suggested. In my case that was: sudo launchctl unload -F /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist && launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist

Once the daemon will have restarted with the new config it will not keep mysql from being shut down when you kill it from the preferences.

Answer 6

If you used homebrew to install mysql, mysqld will keep on restarting unless you use following brew command:

brew services list

Get the name of service to stop and then run the following command:

brew services stop mysql@5.5

Answer 7

As per Theory's answer, this is still effective for Mojave.

sudo launchctl unload -F /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.oracle.oss.mysql.mysqld.plist

Per amacrobert, if you are facing this issue of mysqld continuing starting up, this is most likely due to you having mysql installed on the system level and by default, it will startup automatically on a computer restart.

In my situation, I was confused after a computer restart why my docker mysql container complained about an already allocated port. After continual debugging, I remember I installed mysql on the system level and never restarted my computer!

Cheer.