Happened again today unfortunately a google search did not lead me here.

Three years later, Google finally also pointed to this issue.

I just had senior moments, too, and tried to update a non-existing database:

me@server:/../w$ php maintenance/update.php --quick
MediaWiki 1.31.16 Updater

Your composer.lock file is up to date with current dependencies!
Going to run database updates for databasename
Depending on the size of your database this may take a while!
Turning off Content Handler DB fields for this part of upgrade.
...ipblocks table does not exist, skipping new field patch.
...ipblocks table does not exist, skipping new field patch.
...already have interwiki table
[e8a98e8f613ac7f0e1cbabc8] [no req]   MWException from line 454 of /../w/includes/installer/MysqlUpdater.php: Missing rc_timestamp field of recentchanges table. Should not happen.
Backtrace:
#0 /../w/includes/installer/DatabaseUpdater.php(482): MysqlUpdater->doIndexUpdate()
#1 /../w/includes/installer/DatabaseUpdater.php(446): DatabaseUpdater->runUpdates()
#2 /../w/maintenance/update.php(203): DatabaseUpdater->doUpdates()
#3 /../w/maintenance/doMaintenance.php(94): UpdateMediaWiki->execute()
#4 /../w/maintenance/update.php(248): require_once(string)
#5 {main}

The error is indeed misleading. It will be nice for update.php to check if the database exists before it starts running. Newer versions of MediaWiki may perhaps already do this. This, however, does not help us with ante-diluvial versions of MediaWiki we somehow try to upgrade to a decently recent version.

@Aklapper It would be fantastic if you could get somebody from the database team just to comment if such a check already exists in newer versions of MediaWiki. If not, it will also be nice to get an assessment if it is feasible to have the check, thus making this a feature request. Thanks a ton.

@Kghbln : That sounds like a good question for the wikitech-l mailing list

In T236671#8718404 , @Aklapper wrote:

@Kghbln : That sounds like a good question for the wikitech-l mailing list

Done: https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/Q3KO3OJQ3BDDS47INWDFN6PZV2CO6PDI/ Thanks for the suggetion.

The relevant code was removed in 1.36. For me on git master, I see a more helpful error message.