OSX 10.10 Yosemite my.cnf not being read not working

Question

OSX 10.10 Yosemite install by mysql-5.6.21-osx10.9-x86_64.1.dmg

and find my.cnf only in /usr/local/mysql not in /etc or /usr/etc or ~/.my.cnf

sudo find / -name my.cnf
Password:
find: /dev/fd/3: Not a directory
find: /dev/fd/4: Not a directory
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/federated/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_big/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_binlog/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_rpl/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_team/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/rpl/extension/bhs/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/rpl/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/rpl_ndb/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/federated/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/ndb/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/ndb_big/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/ndb_binlog/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/ndb_rpl/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/ndb_team/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/rpl/extension/bhs/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/rpl/my.cnf
/Users/abc/Downloads/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64 2/mysql-test/suite/rpl_ndb/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/federated/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_big/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_binlog/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_rpl/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/ndb_team/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/rpl/extension/bhs/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/rpl/my.cnf
/usr/local/mysql-5.6.21-osx10.8-x86_64/mysql-test/suite/rpl_ndb/my.cnf 

but when i edit the file it not working.

and delete the file start mysql server its ok!

but mv the my.cnf to /etc/my.cnf the server can't start .

Answer 1

I have exactly the same problem. Then I have fixed the problem as the following steps:

1) Use my.cnf in folder /usr/local/mysql instead of /etc. The reason your mysql server cannot start will be mentioned later.

2) Remove writable permission:

On Unix platforms, MySQL ignores configuration files that are world-writable. This is intentional as a security measure."

I used sudo chmod a-w my.cnf to remove that permission I think that is the main reason your mysql server could not load your my.cnf

3) Fix error settings in my.cnf

When you moved your file my.cnf to folder /etc it was auto changed permission to not-writable thus mysql server accepts it. However it may have error settings thus it can not start.

You may find and fix problems by trial-error, just comment all lines first (add # in beginning of lines), then open one by one and try to restart mysql server to find the problem. When trying, sometimes your mysql server cannot start again because it has been loaded into memory but cannot run normally, try to find and kill its threads (I use command ps -A | Grep mysql to find)

In my case any settings using utf8bm4 causes the crash.

Hope that helps