Schrödingers MySQL table: exists, yet it does not

Question

I am having the weirdest error of all.

Sometimes, when creating or altering tables, I get the \'table already exists\' error. However, DROP TABLE returns \'#1051 - u

Answer 1

I had this problem and hoped deleting the IBD file would help as posted above but it made no difference . MySQL only recreated a new IBD file . In my case, there are actually similar tables in other databases in the same MySQL instance . Since the FRM file was missing , I copied the FRM file from the similar table in another database , restarted MySQL and the table worked correctly .