Have you encountered this error?
An error occurred while setting the password for the MySQL administrative user.
This may have happened because the account already has a password, or because of a
communication problem with the MySQL server.
Or maybe seen this?
Errors were encountered while processing:
mysql-server-5.5
mysql-server
Or this?
dpkg: error processing package mysql-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
This is a total bastard of a problem. Here’s what worked for me:
sudo apt-get purge mysql-server mysql-client mysql-common mysql-server-5.5
sudo dpkg --purge mysql*
sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql
sudo apt-get install -f
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo reboot
Purge everything that even looks like mysql. Remove the /etc/mysql directory manually, because mysql-common is going to try to hide there. Fix any broken dependencies and reconfigure any broken packages. You may get the same error again when trying to reinstall mysql-server. I threw up my hands and went to bed at that point, woke up this morning deciding to finally learn PostgreSQL, got this error:
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
and believe it or not, a reboot fixed the problem for me. mysqld started on reboot. I rubbed my eyes, and wrote this post in case it ever bloody well happens again.
