Any way to select without causing locking in MySQL?

Question

Query:

SELECT COUNT(online.account_id) cnt from online;

But online table is also modified by an event, so frequently I can see lock by runn

Answer 1

SELECTs do not normally do any locking that you care about on InnoDB tables. The default transaction isolation level means that selects don't lock stuff.

Of course contention still happens.