MySQL Community · Help: MySQL fails to start intermittently in containers, logs inside

851
Myr/mysql·posted by linlin·6 hours agoTutorial

Help: MySQL fails to start intermittently in containers, logs inside

Most MySQL articles stop at "how to use it" and never cover "when not to use it". This is an attempt at the second half.

// Minimal reproduction: you must use a real long-tail distribution here.
// Uniform load-test traffic will never trigger this.
func (s *Server) handle(ctx context.Context) error {
    conn, err := s.pool.Acquire(ctx)
    if err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("acquire: %w", err)
    }
    defer conn.Release()

    return s.do(ctx, conn)
}

On trade-offs, my view is this: if nobody on the team owns this area long-term, do not introduce a second mechanism. With two coexistence you first have to work out which one is even in play when things break, and that costs far more than the performance you saved.

We also fixed monitoring along the way: replaced average-based alerts with percentiles and split them per endpoint. False alerts dropped by about seventy percent and the on-call rotation visibly cheered up.

The first thing was to collapse the variables. We were changing config and upgrading the version at the same time, and afterwards nobody could say which change caused what. We rolled back to moving one variable at a time, re-ran three times, and only then did the curve settle. Tedious, but not skippable.

388 comments

388 comments

· first 120 loaded
M
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

509
Ttang_hao·2 hours ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

501
Mmike_xu·12 minutes ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

476
Zzhu_zong·yesterdayedited

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

451
Zzhu_zongOP·12 minutes ago

This is not a MySQL problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

1
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

1
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

469
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

400
RraseOP·28 minutes ago

This is not a MySQL problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

2
Lli_ming·2 days agoedited

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

468
Oops_wang·12 minutes ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

425
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

398
Wwinter·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

368
RraseOP·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

299
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

1
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

14
Ddev_zhou·12 minutes agoedited

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

180
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

355
Bbob_chen·28 minutes ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

342
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

This is not a MySQL problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

66
Wwinter·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

96
Sswoole_leeMod·just now

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

13
Nnikic·1 hour ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

121
Hhuang_keOP·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

463
Sslow_query·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

15
Sslow_query·2 days agoLevel 6

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

163
Nnikic·2 days ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

257
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

1
Rrase·1 hour ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

47
Mmike_xu·28 minutes ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

216
Rran_bo·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

5
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

46
Kkernel_panic·2 days agoedited

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

12
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

123
Nnikic·12 minutes agoedited

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

15
Ttang_haoOP·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

510
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

76
Kkernel_panic·1 hour ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

106
Rran_bo·2 days agoLevel 6

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

124
Nnikic·12 minutes ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

334
Ttang_hao·2 days agoedited

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

295
Rran_bo·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

287
Oops_wang·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

268
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

263
Wwinter·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

25
Rrase·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

50
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

249
Nnikic·12 minutes ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

1
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

245
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

239
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

231
Zzhou_yi·2 days agoedited

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

214
Sslow_query·2 days ago

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

197
Oops_wang·2 days agoedited

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

163
Ddev_zhouMod·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

181
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

143
Rran_bo·2 days ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

1
Sslow_query·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

130
Rrase·2 days ago

This is not a MySQL problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

129
Ddev_zhou·12 minutes ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

113
Rrase·just now

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

107
Mmike_xu·just now

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

103
Kkernel_panic·3 minutes ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

84
Zzhou_yiMod·2 hours ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

60
Rrase·12 minutes ago

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

420
Oops_wangOP·5 hours ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

226
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

12
Wwinter·2 days ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

3
Ddev_zhou·yesterdayedited

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

284
Oops_wang·2 days ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

441
Oops_wang·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

268
Zzhu_zong·5 hours ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

420
Llinlin·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

148
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

223
Mmike_xuOP·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

77
Rrase·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

80
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

140
Wwinter·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

1
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

1
Oops_wang·2 days agoLevel 6

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

184
Aalice_dev·2 days agoedited

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

184
Hhuang_ke·2 days agoedited

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

139
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

1
Zzhu_zong·12 minutes ago

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

79
Sslow_query·3 minutes ago

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

73
Cchen_dev·3 minutes ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

456
Zzhu_zong·2 days agoedited

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

100
Mmike_xu·yesterday

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

227
Zzhu_zong·yesterday

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

354
Zzhu_zong·2 days agoLevel 6

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

475
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

65
NnikicOP·2 days agoedited

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

2
Mmike_xuOP·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

1
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

54
Sswoole_lee·just now

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

39
Rrase·12 minutes ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

23
Lli_mingOP·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

78
Nnikic·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

5
Nnikic·2 days ago

This is not a MySQL problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

270
Lli_ming·28 minutes ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

126
Zzhou_yi·2 hours ago

One counter-example: below MySQL 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

1
Oops_wang·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

1
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

35
Kkite·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

28
Wwinter·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

22
Wwinter·2 days agoedited

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

478
Llinlin·2 days agoedited

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

457
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

437
Rran_bo·2 days ago

I just read the MySQL source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

24
Nnikic·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

477
Llinlin·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

46
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

16
Ddev_zhou·2 days agoedited

This is not a MySQL problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

289
Rrase·just nowedited

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

13
Lli_ming·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

486
Kkernel_panic·1 hour ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

5
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

This is not a MySQL problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

3
Cchen_dev·5 hours ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

5
Zzhou_yi·2 days agoedited

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

2
Llinlin·2 days agoedited

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

1

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