A.2.12. Can't create/write to file
If you get an error of the following type for some queries, it
means that MySQL cannot create a temporary file for the result
set in the temporary directory:
Can't create/write to file '\\sqla3fe_0.ism'.
The preceding error is a typical message for Windows; the Unix
message is similar.
One fix is to start mysqld with the
--tmpdir option or to add the option to the
[mysqld] section of your option file. For
example, to specify a directory of C:\temp,
use these lines:
[mysqld]
tmpdir=C:/temp
The C:\temp directory must exist and have
sufficient space for the MySQL server to write to. See
Section 4.3.2, “Using Option Files”.
Another cause of this error can be permissions issues. Make sure
that the MySQL server can write to the tmpdir
directory.
Check also the error code that you get with
perror. One reason the server cannot write to
a table is that the filesystem is full:
shell> perror 28
Error code 28: No space left on device
