LP:955089 - Failure to open a CSV table will give Out-of-memory message even if the problem is not related to memory

One can get out-of-memory errors when the server fails to open a CSV table. That is, an error like this:

120314 15:10:06 [ERROR] Failed to write to mysql.general_log: Out of memory; check if mysqld or some other process uses all available memory; if not, you may have to use 'ulimit' to allow mysqld to use more memory or you can add more swap space

can be caused by:

• stopping the server
• removing the general_log.CSV file (but leaving general_log.CSM and general_log.frm files intact)
• starting the server back
• running some query.

The error message is rather misleading.

One can think that missing CSV file is a very much edge-case. However, the whole point of using CSV storage engine is to allow the user to mess with the server's data files, so I could argue that missing table.CSV file is a more frequent scenario than, say, a missing table.MYI file.