MySQL daemon refuses to start with "Can't start server: Bind on TCP/IP port: Address already in use" (it's not).

Question

Okay guys, I'm ready to bloody give up on this thing, I think I'm almost there though, just one last error, the server starts up fine, but then it fails saying that the bind on TCP/IP port already in use :S Which is not true, as mysql is not running :(

Errors:

bash-4.2$ mysqld
120730 18:31:05 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
120730 18:31:05 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
120730 18:31:05 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
120730 18:31:05 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.5
120730 18:31:05 InnoDB: Using Linux native AIO
120730 18:31:05 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
120730 18:31:05 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
120730 18:31:06 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda.
120730 18:31:06  InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start
120730 18:31:07 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 2929794
120730 18:31:07 [Note] Server hostname (bind-address): '0.0.0.0'; port: 3306
120730 18:31:07 [Note]   - '0.0.0.0' resolves to '0.0.0.0';
120730 18:31:07 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '0.0.0.0'.
120730 18:31:07 [ERROR] Can't start server: Bind on TCP/IP port: Address already in use
120730 18:31:07 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on port: 3306 ?
120730 18:31:07 [ERROR] Aborting

120730 18:31:07  InnoDB: Starting shutdown...
120730 18:31:08  InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 2929794
120730 18:31:08 [Note] mysqld: Shutdown complete

Answer 1

Use lsof -i TCP:3306 or netstat -lp | grep 3306 to find out what is already listening on port 3306 - something must be listening on it.

You could consider staring the server on a different port (edit my.cnf and change the default port there).

You may need to run this as root, i.e. sudo lsof -i TCP:3306