Clean the SQL file manually
Open your .sql file in a text editor (like VS Code, Notepad++, or Sublime Text) and look at the very first few lines.
- Ensure comments are formatted correctly: Every line of text that isn't a command must start with -- or be inside /* */.
- Remove the header: You can safely delete everything from the very top of the file down to the line before START TRANSACTION;.
Your file should start like this:
SQL
SET SQL_MODE = "NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO";
START TRANSACTION;
SET time_zone = "+00:00";
==
Incorrect (Causes Error)
phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
- version 5.2.3
Correct (SQL Comment)
-- phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
-- version 5.2.3
==
It looks like you are trying to import a SQL file (a database dump) that contains
non-SQL metadata at the very beginning of the file, which MariaDB doesn't know how to interpret.
The error is specifically flagging the "phpMyAdmin SQL Dump" header text. SQL servers expect every line to be a valid command or a properly formatted comment.
Why this is happening
When you export a database using phpMyAdmin, it sometimes includes a header that looks like this:
SQL
phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
- version 5.2.3
...
