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I cannot reproduce this issue and I'm not sure it comes from our code (as opposed from Joomla! itself or a third party plugin in the system, content or installation folders). You see, the update process is handled by Joomla!, not Akeeba Backup. Moreover, there has been no change in our database structure for over a year, meaning that an update will not trigger a database update. Finally, the same database installation / update code we run at the end of a successful installation / update also always runs every single time you access the Akeeba Backup control panel page. That is to say, if you have visited the Akeeba Backup control panel page at least once in the last year and you didn't get that error on that particular site you have proven that the issue does not come from Akeeba Backup itself.

Finally, I'd like to point out that you are using MariaDB, not MySQL, on your site. Even though they are nominally compatible with each other the Joomla! project only confirms that the Joomla! CMS runs on MySQL proper.

I hope this helps you narrow down your issue.

Following your ticket I migrated one of my Linux dev environments to MariaDB. I have been able to install and use Akeeba Backup just fine. Moreover, my own blog is hosted on Rochen and I can tell you with absolute certainty that Akeeba Backup is installed, regularly updated and operating just fine - I have the daily backups on my S3 account to prove it, too!

If you are wondering what is going on, Akeeba Backup uses its own database driver layer. This is necessary when taking a backup from the command line. When we are running inside Joomla!, however, we just use a Decorator to piggyback on Joomla's database driver. Basically, we have a "dummy" driver which does nothing more than pass information between the Akeeba Engine and the Joomla! database driver using a stable API. I am wondering if Joomla! or a 3PD extension is doing something silly. In this case I have thought of possible workarounds, I just haven't enabled them in our code yet.

So first I am wondering what kind of database driver is being used by Joomla!. Take a look in your configuration.php file and find the $dbtype line. Does it read mysql, mysqli or pdomysql? If it reads something else please let me know.

Moreover, I would like to know if you have installed either Falang or any JoomlaTools extension (or if the Koowa system plugin is enabled). These extensions override Joomla's database driver and erroneously report "mysql" as the driver name. On PHP 7 this driver does not exist, therefore we use a special workaround.

Yeah, I always want to know why as well. The first thing I was taught in Mechanical Engineering school is "don't ask why it does or doesn't work, but why". That was word for word the first thing we were taught :D

I am wondering if the PHP version has something to do with it. Can you try downgrading to PHP 5.6 and retry?

I believe that extension installs a plugin in the "installation" group which gets activated every time Joomla! tries to install anything (new extension or update). Since such a plugin runs after the download of an update package / after the upload of an installation package but before its installation I can understand why you'd get confused.

For what it's worth this is the exact reason I told the people who implemented that feature in Joomla! (themselves extension developers) that it's a misguided feature. That was four years ago (oh, the irony). I was pretty sure that someone would drop the ball with one of these plugins and an unrelated extension developer would get the support burden and / or the blame. You are a reasonable person who asked politely and trusted my reasonable reply. I wonder how many people thought "I am not gonna use Akeeba Backup / sh404SEF / whatever because the crappy thing won't even install, God knows if it won't f**k up my site completely" because RocketTheme's army of outsourced, underpaid, overworked, dismal code churners dropped the ball. If only someone would have predicted that problem. Oh, wait... * sigh *