When is a mySQL permission error not a permission error

Question

So I've been going sort-of crazy for the past few days. I've got a mac, OSX 10.6.4, and I HAD mySQL running on it. At some point after the 10.6.4 update, mySQL stopped working. I got an error telling me that mySQL couldn't find the mysql.sock file.

I've uninstalled/reinstalled mySQL a couple of times and nothing is helping. if I run the mysqld coommand in my bin directory I get a bunch of errors that lead me to believe there was a permission error on the data directory, but data is owned by mysql...so I'm lost. I'm not really a DB guy, I just need one on my machine for connecting to wordpress and things like that.

This is everything out of local.err

101007 21:47:34 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql-5.5.6-rc-osx10.6-x86_64/data
error: Found option without preceding group in config file: /etc/my.cnf at line: 2
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted
101007 21:47:34 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /usr/local/mysql-5.5.6-rc-osx10.6-x86_64/data/JoeC.local.pid ended
101007 21:48:20 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql/data
101007 21:48:20 [Warning] Setting lower_case_table_names=2 because file system for /usr/local/mysql/data/ is case insensitive
101007 21:48:20 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3
InnoDB: The first specified data file ./ibdata1 did not exist:
InnoDB: a new database to be created!
101007 21:48:20  InnoDB: Setting file ./ibdata1 size to 10 MB
InnoDB: Database physically writes the file full: wait...
101007 21:48:20  InnoDB: Log file ./ib_logfile0 did not exist: new to be created
InnoDB: Setting log file ./ib_logfile0 size to 5 MB
InnoDB: Database physically writes the file full: wait...
101007 21:48:20  InnoDB: Log file ./ib_logfile1 did not exist: new to be created
InnoDB: Setting log file ./ib_logfile1 size to 5 MB
InnoDB: Database physically writes the file full: wait...
InnoDB: Doublewrite buffer not found: creating new
InnoDB: Doublewrite buffer created
InnoDB: 127 rollback segment(s) active.
InnoDB: Creating foreign key constraint system tables
InnoDB: Foreign key constraint system tables created
101007 21:48:21 InnoDB 1.1.2 started; log sequence number 0
101007 21:48:21 [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: Permission denied
101007 21:48:21 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on socket: /var/mysql/mysql.sock ?
101007 21:48:21 [ERROR] Aborting

101007 21:48:21  InnoDB: Starting shutdown...

help?

Answer 1

1.) Either MySQL is running
or
2.) Your not running MySQL as a user with correct permissons
try sudo first before the command.. so running it as root..
My mac asks for a password - whereby it can run it as the correct user

Hope this helps :D

Answer 2

Check if the mysql process is currently running

ps -ef | grep mysqld

Does that give you any output? If it is not the just the grep command itself then the process is still running.

Next check if mysql has any files open

lsof | grep mysql

Does that give you any output? This is a list of files open by mysql. It may explain why it is hanging around for.

Have you restarted your machine? (You shouldn't need to - but you may have a process hanging around)