mysqld failing to start, and mysql error 2002

Question

Okay, I've looked around, but I'm very confused with the problem. Please forgive me if it's something stupid. :*S I'm running 32bit Debian 6.0.6.

    root@debian:~# service mysql start
    Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed!

So, the the service fails to start.

    root@debian:~# mysql
    ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

And this is the error given when running the command mysql. Is this error because mysqld failed to start? Or is there another reason?

I went to the directory, /var/mysqld/ and there wasn't a file named mysqld.sock. Is that the issue, or am I an idiot? hahah. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

EDIT: Also, it appears that logs associated with mysql, such as mysql.log and mysql.err have no value to them, they're blank. Also, I've chmod 777'd all the directories that mysql acts in. The service still continues to refuse running.

Answer 1

Try to track down the error a bit differently. Run MySQL in the foreground.

mysqld_safe --log-error=/var/log/mysql.err

This should produce a log with some details at /var/log/mysql.err hopefully and add the details to your question if any in case my solution below doesn't work and someone else can help.

You may end up getting an error mysqld_safe: command not found and if you do, use the locate command to find it.

locate mysqld_safe

This will tell you where it is. For example, if it returns /usr/bin/mysqld_safe, run the command

/usr/bin/mysqld_safe --log-error=/var/log/mysql.err

If I had to hazard a guess, you will find an error about pthreads.

InnoDB: Error: pthread_create returned 12

If this is the case, the easy solution is to disable InnoDB for MySQL. Chances are you won't need this, so disable it in the config.

To turn off InnoDB, edit the MySQL configuration file at /etc/mysql/my.cnf and add this to it

skip-innodb

Now start MySQL

/etc/init.d/mysql start

Answer 2

I had the same problem.

The /tmp dir was not writbale, so MYSQL couldn't write some needed file.

Just do this :

chmod 777 /tmp

and restart mysql

/etc/init.d/mysql start