RBL, RBR, and temporary tables.  As noted elsewhere in this chapter (see Section 16.3.1.23, “Replication and Temporary Tables”), temporary tables are not replicated when using the row-based format. However, you can use the mixed format; when mixed format is in effect, “safe” statements involving temporary tables are logged using the statement-based format. For more information, see Section 16.1.2.1, “Comparison of Statement-Based and Row-Based Replication”.

RBL and the BLACKHOLE storage engine.  Prior to MySQL 5.1.29, DELETE and UPDATE statements did not work with RBL and BLACKHOLE tables. (Bug#38360)

RBL and synchronization of nontransactional tables.  When using row-based replication of a MyISAM or other nontransactional table, changed rows are written to the transaction cache. Often, when many rows are affected, the set of changes are split into several events; when the statement commits, all of these events are written to the binary log. When executing on the slave, a table lock is taken on all tables involved, then the rows are applied in batch mode. (This may or may not be effective, depending on the engine used for the slave's copy of the table).

Latency and binary log size.  Because RBL writes changes for each row to the binary log, the size of the binary log can grow quite rapidly. When used in a replication environment, this can significantly increase the time required for making the changes on the slave that match those on the master. You should be aware of the potential for this delay in your applications.

Reading the binary log.  With the --base64-output=DECODE-ROWS and --verbose options, mysqlbinlog is able to format the contents of the binary log in a manner that is easily human-readable, in case you want to read or recover from a replication or database failure using the contents of the binary log. For more information, see Section 4.6.7.2, “mysqlbinlog Row Event Display”. Before MySQL 5.1.28, this was not possible (Bug#31455).

Binary log execution errors and slave_exec_mode.  If you use slave_exec_mode=IDEMPOTENT, a failure to apply changes from RBL because the original row cannot be found does not trigger an error, and does not cause replication to fail. This means that it is possible that updates are not applied on the slave, so that the master and slave are no longer synchronized. Latency issues and use of nontransactional tables when using slave_exec_mode=IDEMPOTENT and RBR can cause the master and slave to diverge even further. For more information about slave_exec_mode, see Section 5.1.4, “Server System Variables”.

Lack of binary log checksums.  No checksums are used for RBL. This means that network, disk, and other errors may not be identified when processing the binary log. To ensure that data is transmitted without network corruption, you may want to consider using SSL, which adds another layer of checksumming, for replication connections. See Section 5.5.7, “Using SSL for Secure Connections”, for more information about setting up MySQL with SSL.

Filtering based on server ID not supported.  A common practice is to filter out changes on some slaves by using a WHERE clause that includes the relation @server_id <> server-id clause with UPDATE and DELETE statements, a simple example of such a clause being WHERE @server_id <> 1. However, this does not work correctly with row-based logging. If you must use the server_id system variable for statement filtering, then you must also use --binlog_format=STATEMENT.

Database-level replication options.  The effects of the options --replicate-do-db, --replicate-ignore-db, and --replicate-rewrite-db differ considerably depending on whether row-based or statement-based logging is in use. Because of this, it is recommended to avoid the database-level options and use the table-level options such as --replicate-do-table and --replicate-ignore-table instead. For more information about these options and the impact that your choice of replication format has on how they operate, see Section 16.1.3, “Replication and Binary Logging Options and Variables”.