mysql error : ERROR 1018 (HY000): Can't read dir of '.' (errno: 13)

Question

when i try to view the databases in mysql i get this error:

ERROR 1018 (HY000): Can\'t read dir of \'.\' (errno: 13)

And that stops my app

Answer 1

chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql/

chmod -R 755 /var/lib/mysql/

I can confirm that these two chmod statements worked for me (Webmin didn't see the databases nor did show tables) but I'm not sure why I had to do this after setting up perhaps two dozen servers (Centos) with MySQL in that past few years.