This seems common and can be fixed by running one of the steps at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/resetting-permissions.html
This seems to happen sometimes with the following exception:
ProcessExecutionError: None
Command: service mysql restart
Exit code: 1
Stdout: ''
Stderr: 'restart: Unknown instance: \n'
To resolve this the following seems to work:
MYSQL_PKGS=`sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep mysql | cut -f 1`
echo $MYSQL_PKGS
sudo apt-get remove --purge $MYSQL_PKGS
If you get the following (when starting horizon) in ubuntu 11.10:
.: 51: Can't open /etc/apache2/envvars
Run:
APACHE_PKGS=`sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep apache | cut -f 1`
echo $APACHE_PKGS
sudo apt-get remove --purge $APACHE_PKGS
Then stop and uninstall and install to resolve this.