Question : Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket

I am totally frustrated and stuck.


Yesterday MySQL was working perfectly fine. I did run an update on Ubuntu 10 server but I am pretty sure that I used MySQL after that but I can't totally remember.

Now I get the error "Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket" any time I try to run mysql from the command line and nothing else will connect either (related problem I assume)

I tried uninstalling and deleting mysql folders after trying every other fix I found on the net. Nothing is working at all.

Anyone know how I can fix this without scrapping my entire server and starting over?

This is my first attempt at running a linux server and most of it makes a lot of sense until something like this comes along.

The full and exact error is this:
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (13)

THE FILE IS THERE! I looked and it is there. It is zero size.

Without totally trashing my system and starting over, how can I fix this?

Answer : Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket

At this point, I would put in another hard disk and reinstall Ubuntu.  Maybe should have done this before because then you can see what is supposed to be there.  If you have data in the database, then you can try to recover it.  If not, you have a new system to work with.

Realize that it doesn't take much to run Linux compared to Windows.  My 'fast' Ubuntu 8.04 system is a 1.5GHz P4 with 750MB of ram and 40GB hard, more than 50% free.  It was running with only 512MB.  I'm running it as a Desktop plus LAMP system.