Starting MySQL with Systemd Hangs at "Activating (Start)"

[Authorized User]

I created a custom systemd unit file for our environment. It mostly works, except when you do 'systemctl start mysql@site622' it hangs forever until you Ctrl+C, and then it finally returns to a shell prompt. At that point, if you do 'systemctl status' it shows "activating (start) instead of "active (running)"

[root@ha50a system]# systemctl status mysql@site622
● [e-mail] - MySQL Service for site622
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mysql@.service; static; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: activating (start) since Sat 2022-01-22 08:08:45 PST; 14s ago
Docs: man:mysqld(8)
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/en/using-systemd.html
Cntrl PID: 653317 (mysqld)
Tasks: 38 (limit: 3355442)
Memory: 254.9M
CGroup: /system.slice/system-mysql.slice/[e-mail]
└─653317 /usr/sbin/mysql57/bin/mysqld --defaults-file=/fs/site622/mysqld/my.cnf

mysqld starts with no errors and I can log into it.

If I then stop it with 'systemctl stop mysql@site622' the service and mysqld process terminate successfully.

The unit file looks like this...

[Unit]
Description=MySQL Service for %I
Documentation=man:mysqld(8)
Documentation=http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/en/using-systemd.html
After=network.target
After=syslog.target

[Service]
User=%I
Type=forking
PIDFile=/fs/%I/mysqld/mysqld.pid
EnvironmentFile=/fs/%I/mysqld/opts_file
StandardOutput=journal+console
StandardError=inherit
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/mysql57/bin/mysqld $MYSQLD_OPTS
TimeoutSec=0
PermissionsStartOnly=true
LimitNOFILE = 10000
Restart=on-failure
RestartPreventExitStatus=1
PrivateTmp=false

#--required for restart
Environment=MYSQLD_PARENT_PID=1

[Install]
#--WantedBy=multi-user.target

The opts_file referenced contains...

MYSQLD_OPTS=--defaults-file=/fs/site622/mysqld/my.cnf

For some reason, systemd is not getting notified that MtSQL has started successfully.

I have confirmed that the mysqld.pid file is getting created in the location that the unit file is configured to look for it...

[root@ha50a system]# cat /fs/site622/mysqld/mysqld.pid
653317

For what it's worth, the my.cnf file contains...

[mysqld]

#--site specific stuff
port=5622
datadir=/fs/site622/mysqld/data
socket=/fs/site622/mysqld/mysqld.sock
log-error=/fs/site622/mysqld/error.log
pid-file=/fs/site622/mysqld/mysqld.pid
plugin-dir=/usr/sbin/mysql57/lib/mysql/plugin
default-time-zone="-08:00"

#--where to find the messages
lc_messages_dir=/usr/sbin/mysql57/share
lc_messages=en_US

#--innodb tuning params
skip-log-bin
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1G
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 1
innodb_log_file_size = 1G
innodb_log_group_home_dir = /fs/site622/mysqld/inno_logs
innodb_flush_neighbors = 0
innodb_fast_shutdown = 2
innodb_flush_method = O_DIRECT

#--all sites
skip_name_resolve
sql_mode=''
slow_query_log=1
long_query_time=3
log_output=TABLE
default_storage_engine=InnoDB
default_tmp_storage_engine=InnoDB