MySQL service is grey under Server Admin We just made a fresh install of Mac OSX Server 10.6.7, but the MySQL service doesn't seem to work, which is strange as its a fresh install!

I open Server Admin, and under Services, the MySQL service has a grey circle.  AFP, FTP and Web are all green.  If I uncheck the MySQL box in Settings, it rechecks itself within a few seconds.  Clicking on the MySQL service on the LHS yeilds:

**The service has encountered an error.**
Try to refresh the view (workwork/MySQL). (NIL_RESPONSE_ERR (*** -[NSCFDictionary setObject:forKey:]: attempt to insert nil value (key: startTime))) MySQL


(that popup appears twice, then)

**The service "MySQL" is unreachable**
Try to reconnect to workwork (a back-end component may be missing).


I can open Terminal, run mysql, and that opens a mysql prompt.  I've also tried opening MySQL Workbench, "New Server Instance" under Server Administration, pick localhost, take the default values, and get a:

**Could not connect to MySQL server:**
Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 61
You may continue if the server is simply not running.


Again, this is a fresh install, so its very strange.
The plist which serverAdmin uses to store the status of the service is missing some keys.

take a look at /Library/Preferences/com.apple.MySQLService.plist

it should look like:

&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"&gt;
&lt;plist version="1.0"&gt;
&lt;dict&gt;
    &lt;key&gt;activeDBPath&lt;/key&gt;
    &lt;string&gt;/var/mysql&lt;/string&gt;
    &lt;key&gt;selectedDBPath&lt;/key&gt;
    &lt;string&gt;/var/mysql&lt;/string&gt;
    &lt;key&gt;serviceRunning&lt;/key&gt;
    &lt;true/&gt;
    &lt;key&gt;serviceStart&lt;/key&gt;
    &lt;date&gt;2011-07-27T14:24:23Z&lt;/date&gt;
&lt;/dict&gt;
&lt;/plist&gt;


Probably yours is missing the serviceStart key

I've had this happen before, though I don't know why.