Comments on: Missing mysql.sock on Mac OS X

By: Michael Botsko

Michael Botsko — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:20:31 +0000

I’d appreciate if you can provide links to official documentation and solutions to the core issue then, and to support this.

By: Grigor Grigorov

Grigor Grigorov — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:53:00 +0000

Guys – I think the missing mysql.sock file is a security measure.

Try to shut down your server and see if it says something along the lines of:
2011-10-21 14:37:10 – Stopping server…
2011-10-21 14:37:14 – Stop server: Warning: World-writable config file ‘/usr/local/zend/mysql/data/my.cnf’ is ignored
Warning: World-writable config file ‘/usr/local/zend/mysql/data/my.cnf’ is ignored

This means that the configuration file where you store your settings is being ignored -> hence you cant expect to be making changes in that file and see those changes kick in once you start the server. So try this:
1. make changes to that file.
2. find it through finder and change back the permissions so that everyone can read but not write to it.

… then some magic takes place and the mysql server says to itself -> hmmm… that file is restricted – I can read it but I also know that only the administrator can write to it… which means its a good file for me to use when I set my settings using what’s written in there.

By: vynsynt

vynsynt — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:03:32 +0000

Ann from July 31, 2010 totally solved my problem and I just wanted to publicly say thanks Ann! I removed the my.cnf file, launched mysql, et voila! success!

By: Adam Fakes

Adam Fakes — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:21:56 +0000

After following the clues here, I found mine in tmp so made symlink and away it went

By: Peter Weil

Peter Weil — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:33:35 +0000

Same problem here. I had a custom my.cnf file in /etc, and apparently MySQL didn’t like it (I’m not sure why). Removing the my.cnf file resolved the issue. This is on a Mac Pro workstation I’m using as a development machine — it’s not a server.

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:10:55 +0000

ensure it is running mysqld first, otherwise you will get that error.

By: Helena Åsgård

Helena Åsgård — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:43:37 +0000

I have the same problem. The socket file is just gone! I cannot imagine what causes this to happen. Any ides?

By: Trevor Smith

Trevor Smith — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 21:14:49 +0000

In my case, the socket file should have been at /var/mysql/mysql.sock, as in the main post above, but the entire /var/mysql directory was missing. I had been using local PHP-based web forms to access mysql as recently as August 3, 2010, but probably hadn’t used them since then (so about 2 months). At some point the directory and socket got deleted and I have absolutely no idea how.

I noticed that mysql ran fine from a command line and I could start and stop the server from the System Preferences panel so I knew the socket must be somewhere. After reading some random posts I noticed that some people’s sockets were supposed to be /tmp and sure enough that’s where mine was. I did a soft link as above (after creating the /var/mysql directory) and poof! everything works again.

Now I wonder what magic pixie caused my original link to disappear…

By: Ann

Ann — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:18:48 +0000

In my case, the missing socket was supposed to be under /tmp/mysql.sock and it was there and at some point disappeared and mysql was not functioning anymore. I had to re-install the mysql server several times on MAC OS X and in case you need to know how to remove previous MySQL, here is the link: http://steveno.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/uninstall-mysql-on-mac-os-x/

What I discovered was that I tried to configure my.conf to make mysql by default use utf8. I copied my-medium.cnf from support-files under /usr/local/mysql and placed it under /etc as /etc/my.cnf. Somehow on computer restart this configuration file was kicking in and /tmp/mysql.sock went missing!!!

As soon as I removed /etc/my.cnf I was able to launch newly installed mysql:

> mysql -u mysql

And the mysql.sock file appeared in the right place: /tmp/mysql.sock

I spent HOURS to just figure out this thing!!! Only my MAC is not a server edition, that’s why this is not working. In work we have a MAC server where we installed MySQL from binaries and I created /etc/my.cnf and that had no collision whatsoever. I believe that possibly one should install MySQL from binaries (not from .dmg image) and that would guarantee a socket and a configuration file co-existing together!