MySQL: order by and limit gives wrong result - sql

Question

MySQL ver 5.1.26
I'm getting the wrong result with a select that has where, order by and limit clauses.
It's only a problem when the order by uses the id column.
I saw the MySQL manual for LIMIT Optimization
My guess from reading the manual is that there is some problem with the index on the primary key, id. But I don't know where I should go from here...
Question: what should I do to best solve the problem?
Works correctly:
mysql> SELECT id, created_at FROM billing_invoices
WHERE (billing_invoices.account_id = 5) ORDER BY id DESC ;
+------+---------------------+
| id | created_at |
+------+---------------------+
| 1336 | 2010-05-14 08:05:25 |
| 1334 | 2010-05-06 08:05:25 |
| 1331 | 2010-05-05 23:18:11 |
+------+---------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
WRONG result when limit added! Should be the first row, id - 1336
mysql> SELECT id, created_at FROM billing_invoices
WHERE (billing_invoices.account_id = 5) ORDER BY id DESC limit 1;
+------+---------------------+
| id | created_at |
+------+---------------------+
| 1331 | 2010-05-05 23:18:11 |
+------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Works correctly:
mysql> SELECT id, created_at FROM billing_invoices
WHERE (billing_invoices.account_id = 5) ORDER BY created_at DESC ;
+------+---------------------+
| id | created_at |
+------+---------------------+
| 1336 | 2010-05-14 08:05:25 |
| 1334 | 2010-05-06 08:05:25 |
| 1331 | 2010-05-05 23:18:11 |
+------+---------------------+
3 rows in set (0.01 sec)
Works correctly with limit:
mysql> SELECT id, created_at FROM billing_invoices
WHERE (billing_invoices.account_id = 5) ORDER BY created_at DESC limit 1;
+------+---------------------+
| id | created_at |
+------+---------------------+
| 1336 | 2010-05-14 08:05:25 |
+------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)
Additional info:
explain SELECT id, created_at FROM billing_invoices WHERE (billing_invoices.account_id = 5) ORDER BY id DESC limit 1;
+----+-------------+------------------+-------+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------+------+------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra |
+----+-------------+------------------+-------+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------+------+------+-------------+
| 1 | SIMPLE | billing_invoices | range | index_billing_invoices_on_account_id | index_billing_invoices_on_account_id | 4 | NULL | 3 | Using where |
+----+-------------+------------------+-------+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+---------+------+------+-------------+
Added SHOW CREATE TABLE billing_invoices result:
Table -- billing_invoices
Create Table --
CREATE TABLE `billing_invoices` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`account_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`invoice_date` date NOT NULL,
`prior_invoice_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`closing_balance` decimal(8,2) NOT NULL,
`note` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci DEFAULT NULL,
`monthly_invoice` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
`created_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`updated_at` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `index_billing_invoices_on_account_id` (`account_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1337 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci
Added more:
I now see that on my development machine, everything is working correctly. That machine has version VERSION() of 5.1.26-rc-log
On my production machine, where the problem is, I see that VERSION() returns 5.1.26-rc-percona-log
So at this point, I'm thinking the problem is with the percona software?
Added more:
At this point, I'm going to consider it a bug in the Percona InnoDB driver. I've put a question to their forum. As an immediate work-around, I'm going to order by created_at. I will also investigate upgrading the db on my system and see if that helps.
My thanks to Rabbott and mdma for their help. I also appreciate the help that I'm not doing something silly, this really is a problem.

Answer 1

Could be this bug that was never resolved for your updated version? http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=31001
I am running 5.1.42 locally. I copy and pasted your queries from above and am getting all the correct results.. Whether it be the bug mentioned above or not, it sounds like a bug, and it appears to have been fixed in a more recent release than yours..

Answer 2

Seems peculiar, maybe a bug? As a workarount maybe you can make the selection explicit - use a subquery to select the MAX(id) and filter on that in a WHERE clause. E.g.
SELECT id, created_at FROM billing_invoices
WHERE id IN (SELECT MAX(id) FROM billing_invoices WHERE account_id=5)

Answer 3

From here,
Bug Details
It seems it was fixed in 5.1.28 :
[22 Jul 2008 20:34] Bugs System
Pushed into 5.1.28
However, I'm noticing the same problem in my version: 5.1.41-3ubuntu12.8