(OS X 10.6) ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)

I have recently installed Snow Leopard onto my Mac, and MySQL stopped working. I went into the terminal and used 'rm -r' on my old directory, and redownloaded the new version from the mysql website. I followed all of the instructions on HiveLogic, but am getting the error listed in the title.

When I run 'locate mysql.sock', I don't get any results. 'locate .sock' returns results that down seem like they relate to the problem. My understanding is that I need to restart mysqld, but the instructions that I have found on other questions don't seem to do that for me. How do I restart mysqld?

Solution 1:

You can kill the mysql process manually.

$ ps ax | grep mysql

Note the process id. Then,

$ kill __pid__

Next thing you should do is edit your my.cnf file, and check to make sure that the socket location is /tmp/mysql.sock. For example, this is what my [client] section looks like:

[client]
user=mysql
port=3306
socket=/tmp/mysql.sock

Let's say $MYSQL is your MySQL folder (in the case of the tutorial you provided, it's probably in /usr/local/mysql/bin). If you haven't already done so, you have to set up your databases and give your superuser a password.

$ useradd mysql
$ cd $MYSQL
$ ./mysql_install_db

Start MySQL here. Then:

$ ./mysqladmin -u root password '<your_password>'
$ chown -R mysql:mysql /usr/local/mysql/var

Then run sudo ./mysqld_safe --user=mysql & and you should be set.