If you install MySQL via homebrew on MacOS, you might need to delete your old data directory /usr/local/var/mysql
. Otherwise, it will fail during the initialization process with the following error:
==> /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/8.0.16/bin/mysqld --initialize-insecure --user=hohoho --basedir=/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/8.0.16 --datadir=/usr/local/var/mysql --tmpdir=/tmp
2019-07-17T16:30:51.828887Z 0 [System] [MY-013169] [Server] /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/8.0.16/bin/mysqld (mysqld 8.0.16) initializing of server in progress as process 93487
2019-07-17T16:30:51.830375Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010457] [Server] --initialize specified but the data directory has files in it. Aborting.
2019-07-17T16:30:51.830381Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-013236] [Server] Newly created data directory /usr/local/var/mysql/ is unusable. You can safely remove it.
2019-07-17T16:30:51.830410Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010119] [Server] Aborting
2019-07-17T16:30:51.830540Z 0 [System] [MY-010910] [Server] /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/8.0.16/bin/mysqld: Shutdown complete (mysqld 8.0.16) Homebrew.