ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock'

Question

I installed MySQL on Mac OS X Mountain Lion with homebrew install mysql, but when I tried mysql -u root I got the following error:

Answer 1

Running sudo chown _mysql /usr/local/var/mysql/* helped me finally after trying multitude of options from all these SO answers. The issue with permissions probably arose from improper shutdown of the machine.