Recovering from a Database Failure

In the event that a database shuts down prematurely or unexpectedly, tables may become corrupt or out of sync. In such an event it is possible that Movable Type may remain functional until the application attempts to access one of those corrupt tables at which time you may encounter an application error like the following.

Statement has no result columns to bind (perhaps you need to successfully call execute first) at .../cgi-bin/mt/extlib/Data/ObjectDriver/Driver/DBI.pm <.../cgi-bin/mt/extlib/Data/ObjectDriver/Driver/DBI.pm> line 119.

In most cases this error is easily recovered from by running an integrity check on the database. If you are running MySQL you can do this by running the mysqlcheck command. We recommend first scanning the database for errors before repairing them. First execute:

mysqlcheck -u <user> -p <movabletype_db>

If errors are found, you may see output like this:

movabletype.mt_asset                               OK
movabletype.mt_association                         OK
movabletype.mt_author
warning  : 1 client is using or hasn't closed the table properly
status   : OK
movabletype.mt_blog
warning  : 1 client is using or hasn't closed the table properly
status   : OK
movabletype.mt_category                            OK
movabletype.mt_comment
warning  : 2 clients are using or haven't closed the table properly
status   : OK
movabletype.mt_config                              OK
movabletype.mt_entry
warning  : 3 clients are using or haven't closed the table properly
status   : OK
movabletype.mt_ext_bl_group                        OK
movabletype.mt_ext_bl_groupmap                     OK
movabletype.mt_ext_bl_item                         OK
movabletype.mt_ext_bl_log                          OK
movabletype.mt_ext_bl_permission                   OK
movabletype.mt_ext_bl_source                       OK
movabletype.mt_ext_bl_update                       OK
movabletype.mt_fileinfo
warning  : Table is marked as crashed
warning  : 1 client is using or hasn't closed the table properly
error    : Size of datafile is: 4722688         Should be: 4722692
error    : Corrupt
movabletype.mt_ipbanlist                           OK
movabletype.mt_log                                 OK
movabletype.mt_notification                        OK
movabletype.mt_notifier_data                       OK
movabletype.mt_notifier_queue                      OK
<snip>

If it appears your database may have corrupt tables, repair your database using the proper command. In MySQL, you would run:

mysqlcheck -r -u <user> -p <movabletype_db>

This command should then indicate if it was able to repair your corrupted tables. For example:

info     : Found link that points at 4722672 (outside data file) at 1870256
status   : OK

Once that is complete, try accessing Movable Type again to see if your problem is resolved.