Downgrade mysql to mysql 5.6 on xenial

downgrademysql.md

Install MySQL 5.6 in Ubuntu 16.04

Ubuntu 16.04 only provides packages for MySQL 5.7 which has a range of backwards compatibility issues with code written against older MySQL versions.

Oracle maintains a list of official APT repositories for MySQL 5.6, but those repositories do not yet support Ubuntu 16.04. However, the 15.10 repos will work for 16.04.

Uninstall existing mysql 5.7 if any

sudo apt remove mysql-client mysql-server libmysqlclient-dev mysql-common

Check you removed everything

sudo dpkg -l | grep mysql

Purge remainders (e.g. marked with rc) with

sudo dpkg -P <package> [<package> ...].

Download the apt_config-debian package from Oracle and install it using from https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql-apt-config_0.8.0-1_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i mysql-apt-config_0.8.0-1_all.deb

Choose "MySQL 5.6" and "Ubuntu Wily" (assuming Xenial is not yet provided) Community reports, that for Ubuntu 17.10, 18.04 you should select "Ubuntu Trusty"

Add repository to unsupported system? 
select - ubuntu trusty

Run

sudo apt-cache policy mysql-server  

If this shows a 5.6 version, continue.

If not, check your /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mysql.list. It should look roughly like this:

### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ###
# You may comment out entries below, but any other modifications may be lost.
# Use command 'dpkg-reconfigure mysql-apt-config' as root for modifications.
deb http://repo.mysql.com/apt/ubuntu/ wily mysql-apt-config
deb http://repo.mysql.com/apt/ubuntu/ wily mysql-5.6
deb http://repo.mysql.com/apt//ubuntu/ wily mysql-tools
deb-src http://repo.mysql.com/apt/ubuntu/ wily mysql-5.6
You might have to replace "xenial" with "wily". Although you are using 16.04 (codename Xenial), Oracle currently seems to only provide 5.6 in the repos for 14.04 (codename Wiley). But those sources work for 16.04, too.

Create a file /etc/apt/preferences.d/mysql with this content

Package: *
Pin: origin "repo.mysql.com"
Pin-Priority: 999

Run

sudo apt-get update

Now recipe's run should provide

sudo apt install mysql-client mysql-server libmysqlclient-dev

You should get 5.6 version now.

Related ansible role: https://github.com/softasap/sa-mysql56

@apippin @Voronenko @aviantorichad please help urgently. Have you got above mention issue

Works perfectly on 16.04 with trusty. Thanks a bunch! Of course, you should dump your previous database before and re-import it later - this also works without issues.