Upgrade Mysql / MariaDB version 10.1.xx to 10.6.xx on XAMPP Windows

To upgrade MariaDB in XAMPP, follow these steps carefully:

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🔄 Replace MariaDB in XAMPP with a New Version

✅ 1. Backup your data

• Copy:
  \xampp\mysql\data → \xampp\mysql_backup\data
• Or export all DBs via phpMyAdmin.

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✅ 2. Download MariaDB (ZIP version)

• Go to: https://downloads.mariadb.org/
• Choose version 10.6 or later.
• Select Windows ZIP Archive, e.g.:
  mariadb-10.6.16-winx64.zip

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✅ 3. Stop MySQL in XAMPP

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✅ 4. Rename old MariaDB folder

\xampp\mysql → \xampp\mysql_old

if cant rename, try to restart the pc

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✅ 5. Extract new MariaDB

• Extract ZIP into:

\xampp\mysql

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✅ 6. Copy back your data folder

• From:

\xampp\mysql_old\data → \xampp\mysql\data

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✅ 7. Copy config file

• From:

\xampp\mysql_old\bin\my.ini → \xampp\mysql\bin\my.ini

• Edit paths if needed (basedir, datadir).

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✅ 8. Start MySQL via XAMPP

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⚠️ If you see errors:

• Check \xampp\mysql\data\mysql_error.log

• to see console debug, try to run \mysql\bin\mysqld.exe --console

• run \mysql\bin\mariadb-install-db.exe to reinit new system table

• error [ERROR] mysqld.exe: unknown variable 'innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=2M' , go to my.ini then comment or delete row config innodb_additional_mem_pool_size

• error table didn't exist on engine
  after copying the raw database from old data to new data folder , after reinit with mariadb-install-db.exe, copy thea all the ib_logfile and ibdata

• phpmyadmin user previelege problem
  go to mysql console, ` mysql -u root -p

  CREATE USER 'pma'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '';
  GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON phpmyadmin.* TO 'pma'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password_here';
  FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

• phpmyadmin error index

  Notice in .\index.php#377
  Undefined index: utf8

  go to \phpmyadmin\/libraries/classes/Charsets.php
  ine 43: 'utf-8' => 'utf8', change to 'utf-8' => 'utf8mb3',

• If incompatible, export SQL dumps from old MariaDB, then import into the new one.

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