Q:

Systemctl hangs trying to start MySQL on Fedora

When I try to start Mysql on Fedora via systemctl start mysqld.service, it hangs indefinitely and never starts. Running mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables & or mysqld_safe --nowatch --basedir=/usr starts the server just fine, indicating the database is still there, but using service or systemctl doesn't work at all. Nothing is shown in /var/log/mysqld.log. However, `/var/log/messages shows thousands of messages like:
Oct 29 15:55:52 myserver systemd[1]: mysqld.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart.
Oct 29 15:55:52 myserver systemd[1]: Job pending for unit, delaying automatic restart.

How do I diagnose what's wrong and get MySQL to start?

A:

I'm not sure what the original cause or underlying problem was, but reinstalling the mysql packages and then rebooting fixed it.
yum reinstall mysql mysql-server
reboot

