Error installing newer version of MySQL on red hat enterprise 5.6

[titley100]

Hi there I am currently trying to upgrade my version of MySQL on a red-hat enterprise 5.6. I have removed the MySQL version that this was shipped with and I am trying to install version 5.1.59.

I install the distribution fine and then issue the command:

/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

I run through this installation fine but then I try to check the status and restart MySQL with:

service mysql status

Service mysql restart

But I get these errors respectively:

MySQL is not running, but lock exists   [FAILED]

MySQL manager or server PID file could not be found! 
Starting MySQL ...........  Manager of pid-file quit without updating  file.

Thanks in advance for any help received.


[update]
Since this post I tried installing again but this time I couldn't complete this:

/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

when it asks for the current root password I enter the password it comes back with:

 ERROR 2002 (HY000): can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

[atreyu]

It looks like the mysql server has not started up. I'm not used to installing MySQL from scratch, but maybe you can rectify this error by blowing away (or backing up and then blowing away) /var/lib/mysql/* and then start over.

As to the lockfile error, the mysql that ships w/RH typically keeps a lockfile at:

/var/lock/subsys/mysqld

Your newer version of mysql may have installed an initscript (/etc/init.d/mysqld) that does not use this lock file, or uses a different one, but the original one still existed.

In any case, make sure your mysql server is stopped (you may have to kill processes outright), remove any lock files manually, install the new version, then check out the initscript (if one is included) and make sure you understand how the lock file is used.