[debian-mysql] Bug#868445: mysql-server: Would like a way to suppress spurious ERROR 1547

[David Lee Lambert]

Package: mysql-server
Version: 5.5.55-0+deb8u1
Severity: normal
Tags: upstream

Dear Maintainer,

Some time ago, on my main Debian MySQL server, I added an extra
column to the "mysql.user" table of type "timestamp", for auditing
purposes.  It didn't cause any trouble at the time, but now when
I try to issue a GRANT statement I get the error

ERROR 1547 (HY000): Column count of mysql.user is wrong. Expected 42, found 43. The table is probably corrupted

Dropping the extra column gets me past the error, but I wish I could
keep that information. In fact, since the error showed up after "security"
updates on the Debian Stable branch, I consider it a REGRESSION.

System tables with extra columns probably merit a warning during startup;
*not* an error message that prevents commands from running.  Or maybe
there could be a configuration option to change this particular error 
into a warning.  

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.8
  APT prefers oldstable
  APT policy: (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages mysql-server depends on:
ii  mysql-server-5.5  5.5.55-0+deb8u1

mysql-server recommends no packages.

mysql-server suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information