Database is broken

[Dr. Martin Senftleben]

Hi,

I've been using digikam for around 20 years now (version 1 or so), and I 
found my way through glitches and bugs often with the help of this list. 
Due to the high output of this list I stopped being a member of the 
list. Now I have again a problem which I can't solve. I searched the web 
for a solution, no success. Hence I'm back, hoping for some help.

I have a huge number of fotos, and hundreds of hours of work put into 
tagging them, storing geodata, adding comments etc. Due to the number of 
fotos at some point I started using MariaDB (installed locally on my 
PC). This worked fine, I guess I had once ore twice an issue, which was 
solvable.

I made it a rule to start up digikam at least every time after it has 
been updated, because once I had a problem when I didn't do it. However, 
this time, after an update, digikam won't start. Or better: it starts, 
wanting to update the database, but then it stops. Usually it gives 
"timeout" as reason.

Always it had to do with MariaDB. Then it asks for the database location 
and for the program parts, which are all correctly given.
Initially I found out that MariaDB didn't run on my PC, i.e. it hadn't 
been started.After having done that (and confirmed that it is running), 
I still had the same problem. Then I began checking the logs: There it 
said that some Aria_log_... (lock) couldn't be established, and hence it 
stopped with the attempted update. I checked for the mentioned file and 
removed it (it had been created by digikam, but obviously not removed, 
when the process failed).
After that, digikam started with the database update, but now it says, 
that basically all files of the database contain incorrect information:

2026-09-03 17:59:14 8 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/proc.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 8 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/tables_priv.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 8 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/proc.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 8 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/tables_priv.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/tables_priv.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/proc.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/metrics.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/user_summary_by_statement_latency.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/session.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024schema_table_lock_waits.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/user_summary_by_statement_type.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024host_summary_by_statement_latency.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024waits_by_user_by_latency.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/io_global_by_file_by_bytes.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024io_global_by_file_by_latency.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/waits_by_host_by_latency.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/schema_redundant_indexes.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024io_by_thread_by_latency.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024schema_index_statistics.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/statements_with_runtimes_in_95th_percentile.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024ps_digest_avg_latency_distribution.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:14 9 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./sys/x at 0024statements_with_full_table_scans.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:16 10 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/tables_priv.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:19 10 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/proc.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:21 10 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/tables_priv.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:21 10 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/tables_priv.frm'
2026-09-03 17:59:21 10 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/tables_priv.frm'

Then:
2026-09-03 17:59:22 10 [Note] Zerofilling moved table:  './mysql/db'
2026-09-03 17:59:22 10 [Warning] Checking table:   './mysql/db'
2026-09-03 17:59:22 10 [Warning] Recovering table: './mysql/db'
2026-09-03 17:59:22 10 [ERROR] Couldn't repair table: mysql.db

This is repeated several times, before it says:
2026-09-03 17:59:27 10 [ERROR] mariadbd: Incorrect information in file: 
'./mysql/proc.frm'

about 300 times, before the process stops (timeout, I guess).

I don't know what it's supposed to do. Maybe anyone on this list sees 
what's wrong and can help?

The version of digikam is 9.1, I use the stable version of Manjaro. In 
case you want me to do anything within digikam: I can't. Digikam won't 
open, it just gets stuck at the initial attempt to update the database.

-- 
Herzliche Grüße!

Martin Senftleben