Parallels Virtualization and Automation Software

SYMPTOMS

Plesk installation or upgrade on CentOS failed with the error in console:

ERROR while trying to install initial Plesk database

Installation log shows:

Trying to install initial Plesk database... ERROR 1064 (42000) at
line 2: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that
corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near
'----------------------------------------' at line 1

CAUSE

The 5.0.54 version of MySQL is no longer accepting SQL comment lines that begin with '--', and that do not have a whitespace or control character after the '--' string.  This worked in previous MySQL releases even though the MySQL team explicitly stated that it was not supported (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/ansi-diff-comments.html).

RESOLUTION

Take previous mysql* rpms from centosplus repository, like http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/centosplus/i386/RPMS/  and downgrade mysql to older version, for example 5.0.48. Then run Plesk upgrade/installation again. This issue will be fixed in further Plesk versions.