MySQL Sock 2 Doesn't Exist

[Imad]

As the title describes, I keep getting that error.

 

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)'
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: '/tmp/mysql.sock' exists!

 

(I've installed MySQL a dozen times on other servers and never encountered such an error, so I'm pretty much puzzled.)

 

Sometimes I can get it to work, and when I do, it clears the root password and everything up so I have to do it all over again. If I attempt to shutdown the MySQL server, then try to restart, I get stuck with the sock 2 error for a bunch of times until it decides to work again. This is very unstable and unworkable.

 

Any ideas on why it's doing this?

 

I installed it manually using the tar.gz source files version 5.0.83 on Redhat Linux Enterprise 5.

 

The config I used was "./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-charset=utf8 --with-collation=utf8_general_ci"

 

Despite /tmp/mysql.sock exists, it returns the error.

 

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards.

[fenway]

Have you consulted the refman page on this issue?