[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #63640: Track the usage of MyISAM storage engine

[WordPress Trac]

#63640: Track the usage of MyISAM storage engine
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 Reporter:  desrosj          |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  feature request  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Upgrade/Install  |    Version:
 Severity:  normal           |   Keywords:
  Focuses:                   |
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 In MySQL 5.5.5, the default storage engine of MySQL was changed from
 `MyISAM` to `InnoDB`. MariaDB followed suit and switched to `InnoDB` by
 default in version 10.2.

 While still available, usage of `MyISAM` has been discouraged and
 considered legacy due to the lack of support for modern features such as
 transactions, foreign keys, and crash recovery since then..

 In order to evaluate whether WordPress can officially declare `MyISAM` as
 an unsupported engine, more real world data is needed.

 Because the minimum required version of MySQL/MariaDB was only recently
 bumped from `5.0` to `5.5.5` (see [57173]), the likelihood that `MyISAM`
 tables exist in the wild is high. But the true percentage of sites with a
 `MyISAM` table present is completely unknown.

 In the past, there have been several decisions made directly related to
 PHP extension usage. This was helped by the changes in #48116.
 Additionally, #61981 and #62040 sent over a flag indicating whether the
 HEIC and JPEG XL image formats were supported on the server, respectively.

 To [https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/27/proposal-clarifying-cores-
 database-support-policy/ help promote site health in the context of
 database software across the ecosystem], knowing the percentage usage for
 certain database-related practices will become important to make informed
 decisions.

 This ticket proposes that the following checks are preformed when an
 update is requested from w.org and `true`/`false` values be sent over.
 - Whether any default Core tables are using the `MyISAM` engine
 - Whether ''any tables at all'' exist in the site's database using the
 `MyISAM` engine

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/63640>
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