MySQL Workbench – Error Parsing DDL for Schema.Table

alter-tableMySQLmysql-workbench

I have production dbs using Mysql 5.5.31-0ubuntu0.12.04-1 (I know its old, will be upgraded soon).

I used a too advanced version of mysql workbench which allowed me to add a comment to key. (Now reverted to WB 6.3 which should be compatible with mysql 5.5)

Now when I 'Alter table' on one of the tables I get Error parsing DDL.
When I click it shows the error is in the comment of the key (see below)

 KEY `for cron (product ready)` (`a`,`b`),
  KEY `subproducts` (`a`,`b`,`c`) COMMENT 'find products by the subproducts joiner'
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

The question is how can I remove the comment of the key without mysql rebuilding the table and without access to the mysql workbench alter table UI.
This is an important production server and I would like to avoid alter table which will scan all the table.
Thanks

Best Answer

There were no "fast" index ALTERs in 5.5. Check out Percona's pt-online-schema-change to drop and re-add the index (without the comment). It should work with only a small downtime.

A newer product is gh-ost, but that depends on the binlogs, and may not work for such an old version.

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