In need of a bit of support

[Evan Leatherman]

Hi all, 

First post on here and still relatively new to Tickets. I recently installed the latest version of Tickets CAD, V4.0.5, using the new how-to video, and got it first try. Everything was working great until my laptop got to a low battery. It was going to die and I didn't have my charger on me, so I shut down my laptop and let everything close itself. Once plugged in, I rebooted my laptop, enabled Apache and mySQL, and nothing from tickets. The XAMPP Dashboard works fine, however when opening tickets, I just get the main bar at the top, and it sits and loads for ever. And ever. And ever. I spent around 3 hours putting a lot of info in and I'd really hate to lose it! I get an error at the top however, where it tells me it looks like a fresh install. Did it not save anything I did? I'm just stumped and dissapointed.

[Eric Osterberg]

Hi Evan,

First - take a breath, because your data is almost certainly fine. Nothing you entered was thrown away. Every incident and unit you added was written to the database on your disk as you went. When the laptop lost power with MySQL still running, MySQL didn't shut down cleanly, and now it's having trouble reading those files back. That's a MySQL recovery situation, not TicketsCAD deleting your work - and it's usually fixable.

That's also why it looks the way it does: TicketsCAD keeps its incident data in MySQL, and after an unclean shutdown MySQL sometimes can't bring that part of the database back online on the first try. When TicketsCAD can't read those tables, the dashboard just spins and the app looks empty — so it seems like a fresh install even though your data is sitting right there on disk.

Let's get it back. Try these in order:

1. The easy one first. In the XAMPP Control Panel, click Stop next to MySQL, wait about 15 seconds, then click Start again. Reload TicketsCAD. Sometimes MySQL just needs a clean second start to finish recovering. If your data comes back, you're done.
2. If it's still empty, look at the MySQL log. In the XAMPP Control Panel, click the Logs button next to MySQL and open mysql_error.log. Scroll to the bottom and look for lines that mention InnoDB. Copy the last 20-30 lines and send them to me — that tells me exactly what MySQL is stuck on.
3. Before changing anything, make a safety copy. Stop MySQL, then copy this entire folder somewhere safe (your Desktop is fine):
   C:\xampp\8.2.4\mysql\data
   That folder IS your data. As long as you have a copy of it, nothing can be permanently lost, and I can always help you recover from it.

If the log shows InnoDB couldn't start, there's a standard recovery that pulls your data back out — a couple of careful steps in a config file plus an export and re-import. I'm happy to walk you through it one step at a time once I see those log lines. You didn't do anything wrong here.

One thing for next time: before shutting the laptop down, hit Stop on both Apache and MySQL in the XAMPP Control Panel first, then shut down. A hard power-off while MySQL is running is the one thing that can leave it in this state.

Send me those log lines and we'll get your three hours back.

Eric

On Sat, Jul 25, 2026 at 3:42 AM Evan Leatherman <theevanl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all, 

First post on here and still relatively new to Tickets. I recently installed the latest version of Tickets CAD, V4.0.5, using the new how-to video, and got it first try. Everything was working great until my laptop got to a low battery. It was going to die and I didn't have my charger on me, so I shut down my laptop and let everything close itself. Once plugged in, I rebooted my laptop, enabled Apache and mySQL, and nothing from tickets. The XAMPP Dashboard works fine, however when opening tickets, I just get the main bar at the top, and it sits and loads for ever. And ever. And ever. I spent around 3 hours putting a lot of info in and I'd really hate to lose it! I get an error at the top however, where it tells me it looks like a fresh install. Did it not save anything I did? I'm just stumped and dissapointed.

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[Evan Leatherman]

Morning, Eric, I appreciate the quick response.

Currently, I am unable to get MySQL to stay running. Here is it's error log:

10:36:14  [mysql] Error: MySQL shutdown unexpectedly.
10:36:14  [mysql] This may be due to a blocked port, missing dependencies,
10:36:14  [mysql] improper privileges, a crash, or a shutdown by another method.
10:36:14  [mysql] Press the Logs button to view error logs and check
10:36:14  [mysql] the Windows Event Viewer for more clues
10:36:14  [mysql] If you need more help, copy and post this
10:36:14  [mysql] entire log window on the forums

As far as logs go, here is the logs for MySQL:

2026-07-25  3:25:25 0 [Note] InnoDB: File 'C:\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size is now 12 MB.
2026-07-25  3:25:25 0 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for purge to start
2026-07-25  3:25:25 0 [Note] InnoDB: 10.4.32 started; log sequence number 11159103; transaction id 21893
2026-07-25  3:25:25 0 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
2026-07-25  3:25:25 0 [Note] InnoDB: Loading buffer pool(s) from C:\xampp\mysql\data\ib_buffer_pool
2026-07-25  3:25:25 0 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '::'.
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] Starting MariaDB 10.4.32-MariaDB source revision c4143f909528e3fab0677a28631d10389354c491 as process 9272
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use Windows interlocked functions
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Uses event mutexes
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.3
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Number of pools: 1
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Using SSE2 crc32 instructions
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, total size = 16M, instances = 1, chunk size = 16M
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: 128 out of 128 rollback segments are active.
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Creating shared tablespace for temporary tables
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Setting file 'C:\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size to 12 MB. Physically writing the file full; Please wait ...
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: File 'C:\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size is now 12 MB.
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for purge to start
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: 10.4.32 started; log sequence number 11159112; transaction id 21893
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] InnoDB: Loading buffer pool(s) from C:\xampp\mysql\data\ib_buffer_pool
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
2026-07-25 10:33:30 0 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '::'.
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] Starting MariaDB 10.4.32-MariaDB source revision c4143f909528e3fab0677a28631d10389354c491 as process 20728
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use Windows interlocked functions
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Uses event mutexes
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.3
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Number of pools: 1
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Using SSE2 crc32 instructions
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, total size = 16M, instances = 1, chunk size = 16M
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: 128 out of 128 rollback segments are active.
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Creating shared tablespace for temporary tables
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Setting file 'C:\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size to 12 MB. Physically writing the file full; Please wait ...
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: File 'C:\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size is now 12 MB.
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for purge to start
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: 10.4.32 started; log sequence number 11159121; transaction id 21893
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] InnoDB: Loading buffer pool(s) from C:\xampp\mysql\data\ib_buffer_pool
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
2026-07-25 10:35:29 0 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '::'.
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] Starting MariaDB 10.4.32-MariaDB source revision c4143f909528e3fab0677a28631d10389354c491 as process 22736
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use Windows interlocked functions
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Uses event mutexes
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.3
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Number of pools: 1
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Using SSE2 crc32 instructions
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, total size = 16M, instances = 1, chunk size = 16M
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: 128 out of 128 rollback segments are active.
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Creating shared tablespace for temporary tables
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Setting file 'C:\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size to 12 MB. Physically writing the file full; Please wait ...
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: File 'C:\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size is now 12 MB.
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for purge to start
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: 10.4.32 started; log sequence number 11159130; transaction id 21893
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] InnoDB: Loading buffer pool(s) from C:\xampp\mysql\data\ib_buffer_pool
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
2026-07-25 10:36:07 0 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '::'.

[Eric Osterberg]

Hi Evan,

That log actually has good news in it. On every start attempt it shows this line:

InnoDB: 10.4.32 started; log sequence number 11159130; transaction id 21893

That is InnoDB - the part that holds your incidents - starting up cleanly with no corruption errors. Your three hours of work are still on disk. The problem is different from what I first guessed: MariaDB gets almost all the way up (it reaches "Server socket created on IP '::'") and then quits right before it finishes. That is usually something outside the database itself, not damaged data. So please do not use the innodb_force_recovery step from the guide here - that is for a different problem than the one your log shows.

Let's find the real cause. Please try these in order.

Step 1 - Protect the data first. With MySQL stopped, copy this whole folder somewhere safe like your Desktop: C:\xampp\mysql\data

That folder is your data. Once you have a copy, nothing can go wrong from here.

Step 2 - Check for a stuck MySQL process. This is the most common reason it won't stay running on Windows. Open Task Manager with Ctrl+Shift+Esc, click the Details tab, and look for mysqld.exe. If one is listed, click it and choose End task. Then go back to the XAMPP Control Panel and click Start next to MySQL again.

Step 3 - If it still won't stay up, get the real error message. The XAMPP log hides it, but running the server by hand shows it. Open a Command Prompt and type these two lines, one at a time:

cd C:\xampp\mysql\bin

mysqld.exe --console

Watch what it prints. The last 10 to 15 lines are the ones that matter. Copy them and send them to me. Press Ctrl+C in that window to stop it when you are done.

Step 4 - Check your antivirus. Open Windows Security, go to Virus & threat protection, and look at Protection history for anything mentioning mysqld.exe or the xampp folder. If you see something, add an exclusion for the C:\xampp folder. Antivirus locking the database files causes exactly this kind of silent exit.

Send me whatever Step 3 prints and we will pin it down. Because InnoDB is healthy, once we get MariaDB to come up even once, getting your data back out is straightforward. You are not going to lose your work.

Eric

PS: Arnie Shore asked that for the fastest reply, you should start a new thread. Because of some sequencing on his end, your messages are being moderated on this thread, so replies are likely blocked without his active participation. For the fastest forwarding on messages, please start a new message rather than replying.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-source-cad/4085e447-5c37-4bc7-ad0a-aa5fe648ba68n%40googlegroups.com.