MySQL shutdown via service reporting ERROR

Working with MySQL 5.6 under CentOS 6.4 I came across the following problem with MySQL reporting it did not shutdown successfully.

$ sudo su -
$ service mysql stop
Shutting down MySQL................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
................. ERROR!

However, you have to look into the problem in the all important MySQL Error Log where I found a different story.

$ tail -100 /mysql/log/error.log
...
2013-11-04 14:43:40 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_LOCK_WAITS'
2013-11-04 14:43:40 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_LOCKS'
2013-11-04 14:43:40 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_TRX'
2013-11-04 14:43:40 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'InnoDB'
2013-11-04 14:43:40 32351 [Note] InnoDB: FTS optimize thread exiting.
2013-11-04 14:43:40 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Starting shutdown...
2013-11-04 14:44:41 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:45:41 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:46:41 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:47:41 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:48:41 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:49:41 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:50:42 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:51:42 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:52:42 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:53:42 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:54:42 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:55:42 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:56:43 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:57:43 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:58:43 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 14:59:43 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 15:00:43 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 15:01:43 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 109188218872
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MRG_MYISAM'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'CSV'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MEMORY'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MyISAM'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'sha256_password'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'mysql_old_password'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'mysql_native_password'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'binlog'
2013-11-04 15:02:01 32351 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete

131104 15:02:01 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysql.pid ended

The log indicates that the server is actually shutdown, an attempt to try again results in

$ service mysql stop
 ERROR! MySQL server PID file could not be found!

Doing some more investigation to pinpoint if the issue is “service” (i.e. “init.d”) related, I found that the command took suspiciously exactly 15 minutes (on several occasions) and MySQL was indeed not shutdown. For example:

$ sudo su -
$ time service mysql stop; tail /mysql/log/error.log
Shutting down MySQL................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
................ ERROR!

real	15m4.003s
user	0m0.561s
sys	0m2.194s
2013-11-06 16:50:37 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:51:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:52:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:53:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:54:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:55:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:56:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:57:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:58:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:59:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool

However, waiting it did indeed complete successfully.

tail -f /mysql/log/error.log
2013-11-06 16:51:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:52:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:53:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:54:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:55:38 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:56:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:57:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:58:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 16:59:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 17:00:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 17:01:39 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 17:02:40 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for page_cleaner to finish flushing of buffer pool
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 109974145720
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MRG_MYISAM'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'CSV'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MEMORY'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MyISAM'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'sha256_password'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'mysql_old_password'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'mysql_native_password'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'binlog'
2013-11-06 17:03:03 19887 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete

131106 17:03:03 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysql.pid ended
Tagged with: Databases MySQL

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