4.5 migration broken when locale module is enabled

Steps to reproduce the problem:

• Download Drupal 4.4.x and do a fresh install.
• Go to configuration -> modules and enable locale.module.
• Download Drupal 4.5-rc and replace the files (deleting old ones to avoid dups).
• Change conf.php into the right settings.
• Create manually tables users_roles and locales_meta.
• Point the browser at http://host/update.php.
• Choose 2004-03-11: First update since Drupal 4.4.0.

This makes Drupal crash:

2004-04-27
Fatal error: Table 'drupal.locales_source' doesn't exist
query: SELECT s.lid, t.translation FROM locales_source s
INNER JOIN locales_target t ON s.lid = t.lid
WHERE s.source = '%error: %message in %file on line %line.'
AND t.locale = ''
in /var/www/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 125

Hope to be helpful.

I've found more details! There are four wrong SQL sentences at the end of update_85() that cause some errors to be written by watchdog.module. watchdog() uses t() to write the message, and given the fact locales_source is not yet created, it produces above error.

These are the wrong sentences:

ALTER TABLE aggregator_category ALTER COLUMN description DROP NOT NULL;
ALTER TABLE aggregator_item ALTER COLUMN description DROP NOT NULL;
ALTER TABLE aggregator_feed ALTER COLUMN description DROP NOT NULL;
ALTER TABLE aggregator_feed ALTER COLUMN image DROP NOT NULL;

I've written a patch which solves the problem. I've changed above four SQL sentences.

I've written a patch which solves the problem. I've changed above four SQL sentences.

mysql> ALTER TABLE aggregator_feed ALTER COLUMN image DROP NOT NULL;
ERROR 1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'NOT NULL' at line 1
mysql>

Tested on MySQL 4.0.21 and 3.23.49.