mysql daemon can't start

[Justin Adie]

Hi all

I've noticed that one of my servers is refusing to start or complete updates; flagging mysql as the problem process.

the error log contains this (over and over again):

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Server upgrade started with version 80037, but server upgrade of version 80033 is still pending.
--

trying to force the upgrade or go via minimal --verbose --upgrade=minimal etc results in a killed process after a few seconds.

so far as I can tell the update that caused the problem was automatic and no backup was taken.

is there a known solution to this class of error that does not involved data-loss?

I have tried downgrading to 8.0.33 via a debian package but get an error that I can't decypher:

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mysql-server-8.0 conflicts with virtual-mysql-server
mysql-community-server provides virtual-mysql-server and is to be installed.
--

is the hinting here that I should remove mysql-server-8.0 before trying to install community-server?