Cannot restart mysql

Question

I don't know why, all of a sudden I cannot open anymore MySQL. I get the following error:

bomble@ChemAlive:~/ChemAliveCode/SABIC$ mysql -h localhost -u bomble  

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

I tried to restart MySQL doing:

bomble@ChemAlive:~/ChemAliveCode/SABIC$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart
[sudo] password for bomble:

But it failed:

* Stopping MySQL database server mysqld [ OK ]
* Starting MySQL database server mysqld [fail]

I had a look at my error.log file. Here's what it says:

InnoDB: Unable to lock ./ibdata1, error: 11 InnoDB: Check that you do not already have another mysqld process InnoDB: using the same InnoDB data or log files.

Don't know what that means?

Answer 1

Found it:

If I restart using

service mysql restart

instead of

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart

It restarts fine, and I can then login to MySQL.