Spectrum upgrade from 24.3.x to 25.4.9 or later failing with "unknown variable..." error in MySql install logs

Products

• Network Observability
• Spectrum

Issue/Introduction

Upgrade is failing on mysql, with the following error seen in the Install log:

********** Started: Thu Aug 27 02:47:25 2026 **********
running Custom Script Install-Tools/CUS/mibtools.cus
mysqladmin: [ERROR] unknown variable 'load-data-local-dir=/usr/spectrum/custom/spmexport'.
Error(s) occurred. Please see /usr/spectrum/Install-Tools/LOGS/25.4.9.0.15_20260827/mibtools.log.

Script Install-Tools/CUS/mibtools.cus has FAILED

Environment

DX NetOps Spectrum upgrade from 24.3.x to 25.4.9 or later

Cause

The error occurs because load-data-local-dir is not a valid configuration variable for the mysqladmin command-line tool in the latest version of MySql used in 25.4.9. 

Resolution

commented out this line in the configuration file - $SPECROOTmysql/my-spectrum.cnf :

#load-data-local-dir=/usr/spectrum/custom/spmexport

Then stop the running instance of MySql:

cd $SPECROOT/bin
./cmdC localhost 2 MYSQL

NOTE: $SPECROOT denotes the Spectrum home directory. For example:

/usr/spectrum/

After this, re-run the installer.