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 ran into this error after I created a table and deleted it, then wanted to create it again. In my case, I had a self-contained dump file so I dropped my schema, recreated it and imported tables and data using the dump file.