The replication_group_members performance schema table presents the status of each server in the current view from the perspective of this server. The majority of the time the system does not run into partitioning, and therefore the table shows information that is consistent across all servers in the group. In other words, the status of each server on this table is agreed by all in the current view. However, if there is network partitioning, and quorum is lost, then the table shows the status UNREACHABLE for those servers that it cannot contact. This information is exported by the local failure detector built into Group Replication.

Figure 17.7 Losing Quorum

To understand this type of network partition the following section describes a scenario where there are initially 5 servers working together correctly, and the changes that then happen to the group once only 2 servers are online. The scenario is depicted in the figure.

As such, lets assume that there is a group with these 5 servers in it:

Initially the group is running fine and the servers are happily communicating with each other. You can verify this by logging into s1 and looking at its replication_group_members performance schema table. For example:

mysql> SELECT * FROM performance_schema.replication_group_members;
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
| CHANNEL_NAME              | MEMBER_ID                            | MEMBER_HOST | MEMBER_PORT | MEMBER_STATE |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
| group_replication_applier | 1999b9fb-4aaf-11e6-bb54-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13002 | ONLINE       |
| group_replication_applier | 199b2df7-4aaf-11e6-bb16-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13001 | ONLINE       |
| group_replication_applier | 199bb88e-4aaf-11e6-babe-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13000 | ONLINE       |
| group_replication_applier | 19ab72fc-4aaf-11e6-bb51-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13003 | ONLINE       |
| group_replication_applier | 19b33846-4aaf-11e6-ba81-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13004 | ONLINE       |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
5 rows in set (0,00 sec)

However, moments later there is a catastrophic failure and servers s3, s4 and s5 stop unexpectedly. A few seconds after this, looking again at the replication_group_members table on s1 shows that it is still online, but several others members are not. In fact, as seen below they are marked as UNREACHABLE. Moreover, the system could not reconfigure itself to change the membership, because the majority has been lost.

mysql> SELECT * FROM performance_schema.replication_group_members;
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
| CHANNEL_NAME              | MEMBER_ID                            | MEMBER_HOST | MEMBER_PORT | MEMBER_STATE |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
| group_replication_applier | 1999b9fb-4aaf-11e6-bb54-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13002 | UNREACHABLE  |
| group_replication_applier | 199b2df7-4aaf-11e6-bb16-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13001 | ONLINE       |
| group_replication_applier | 199bb88e-4aaf-11e6-babe-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13000 | ONLINE       |
| group_replication_applier | 19ab72fc-4aaf-11e6-bb51-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13003 | UNREACHABLE  |
| group_replication_applier | 19b33846-4aaf-11e6-ba81-28b2bd168d07 | 127.0.0.1   |       13004 | UNREACHABLE  |
+---------------------------+--------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
5 rows in set (0,00 sec)

The table shows that s1 is now in a group that has no means of progressing without external intervention, because a majority of the servers are unreachable. In this particular case, the group membership list needs to be reset to allow the system to proceed, which is explained in this section. Alternatively, you could also choose to stop Group Replication on s1 and s2 (or stop completely s1 and s2), figure out what happened with s3, s4 and s5 and then restart Group Replication (or the servers).