Hello - I am wanting to backup my databases and until now I haven't experienced any difficulties. I am working on an OpenSuSE 15.4 system and wanting to upgrade it which is why I want to backup the databases first. The version of mariadb is :

quasar:/srv/mysql # mariadb -V
mariadb Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.6.15-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using EditLine wrapper

But now I am hitting a new snag, when I try to run the backup script I get the following response -

quasar:/srv/mysql # ./mysqlbackup.sh
mysqldump: Couldn't execute 'SELECT /*!40001 SQL_NO_CACHE */ `EVENT_CATALOG`, `EVENT_SCHEMA`, `EVENT_NAME`, `DEFINER`, `TIME_ZONE`, `EVENT_BODY`, `EVENT_DEFINIT
ION`, `EVENT_TYPE`, `EXECUTE_AT`, `INTERVAL_VALUE`, `INTERVAL_FIELD`, `SQL_MODE`, `STARTS`, `ENDS`, `STATUS`, `ON_COMPLETION`, `CREATED`, `LAST_ALTERED`, `LAST_
EXECUTED`, `EVENT_COMMENT`, `ORIGINATOR`, `CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT`, `COLLATION_CONNECTION`, `DATABASE_COLLATION` FROM `EVENTS`': Cannot proceed, because event sch
eduler is disabled (1577)

The mysql.log file is showing these 2 error messages also -

2024-10-05 14:43:30 0 [ERROR] Incorrect definition of table mysql.event: expected column 'definer' at position 3 to have type varchar(, found type char(141).
2024-10-05 14:43:30 0 [ERROR] mysqld: Event Scheduler: An error occurred when initializing system tables. Disabling the Event Scheduler.

My Duck Duck Go searches on the internet suggested I put the following line in the file my.cnf

event_scheduler=ON

but no joy. Also, most of my internet searches hit on solutions that were designed for running mariadb in a docker container. I am NOT using docker, don't even know how to, and don't want solutions that require docker. Too much to try an grok at this time for me.

One interesting item of note is that on OpenSuSE (at least) the systemd file mariadb.service runs both the install and the upgrade services before starting the actual mysql daemon. Here is an excerpt from mariadb.service that shows this -

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/usr/lib/mysql/mysql-systemd-helper install
ExecStartPre=/usr/lib/mysql/mysql-systemd-helper upgrade
ExecStart=/usr/lib/mysql/mysql-systemd-helper start

Anyone got any bright and wonderful ideas on how to make mariadb a happy camper that will allow me to do a database backup?

Many thanks in advance for those who can guide me back to the mariadb light! Marc C...