I just spent some tedious time figuring out and verifying why a perfectly reasonable fresh install from experience would fail with a database error, which is below.
The bug report is here.
In the end, the problem is simply that EE no longer allows underscores in database prefixes, as you enter them from the install wizard. Your tables get created as requested, however then the install scripts can’t insert into them because they get a bad name.
I found a variant had been reported last year, on 2.3.1, which occurred when ‘adding sites’, so presumably with MSM. No action on this whatever, not even an assessment and assignment, leading to today’s waste of time.
Regression tests, sensibility in not modifying obscure early code just because you want to, etc.. What can I say?
It really is important, folks. Just like that foolery with installer pathings which caused another long day when doing 2.4 and onwards upgrades.
Grumpy? You bet. I think you would be also.
Clive
Here’s what you get, if you try to use underscores as sensible and always fine before. I had used exp_ae as the database prefix; note how the _ae part is doubled in a way unlikely to straight code, but very likely in a flawed regular expression in the wizard.
Workaround, as in the bug report, is to omit the underscore, which results in a messy prefix like expae, which I used to succeed.
A Database Error Occurred
Error Number: 1146
Table ‘ehNNNNN.exp_ae_ae_sites’ doesn’t exist
INSERT INTO `exp_ae_ae_sites` (`site_id`, `site_label`, `site_name`, `site_system_preferences`, `site_mailinglist_preferences`, `site_member_preferences`, `site_template_preferences`, `site_channel_preferences`, `site_bootstrap_checksums`) VALUES (1, ‘Appropriate Endeavors’, ‘default_site’, ‘’, ‘’, ‘’, ‘’, ‘’, ‘’)
Filename: schema/mysql_schema.php
Line Number: 1448