MySQL ERROR 1231 (42000):Variable 'character_set_client' can't be set to the value of 'NULL'

Question

I've a MySQL 5.0.84 running in a Slackware 13.0 Staging server and wanted to copy a single table to another server which was built to use Ubuntu 14.04 OS for some other testing. I've taken a mysqldump of that table and copied to the testing server. I get the following error when I try to restore the dump file.

ERROR 1231 (42000):Variable 'character_set_client' can't be set to the value of 'NULL'

Please help me how to fix this error. Thanks!

Answer 1

I did some search in internet and fixed it finally.

Added the following text at the beginning of the mysqldump file and the restore was successful.

/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@@CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@@CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION=@@COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
/*!40101 SET NAMES utf8 */;
/*!40103 SET @OLD_TIME_ZONE=@@TIME_ZONE */;
/*!40103 SET TIME_ZONE='+00:00' */;
/*!40014 SET @OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS=@@UNIQUE_CHECKS, UNIQUE_CHECKS=0 */;
/*!40014 SET @OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@@FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS, FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0 */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_SQL_MODE=@@SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE='NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO' */;
/*!40111 SET @OLD_SQL_NOTES=@@SQL_NOTES, SQL_NOTES=0 */;

Answer 2

I have modified

/*!40101 SET character_set_client = @saved_cs_client */;

to

/*!40101 SET character_set_client = 'utf8' */;

in the dump file after the code for creating table.

Answer 3

Try to make the maximum allowed packet size arbitrarily high temporarily by typing in:

mysql> set global max_allowed_packet=10000000000;

/via http://injustfiveminutes.com/2013/02/14/errors-restoring-mysql-database-dump-on-wamp-environment/

Answer 4

on my way,open the .sql file,in the end ,do del:

  /*!40101 SET CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
  /*!40101 SET CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
  /*!40101 SET COLLATION_CONNECTION=@OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION */;

and source it again,then work well for me!

Answer 5

Well, thanks to all the answers, It just helped me solving my issue. But copying and pasting codes from above didn't work for me. So, I exported sql file which was already in my database and from there I took the code and added the following to the beginning of my sql file to import

-- phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
-- version 4.7.0
-- https://www.phpmyadmin.net/
--
-- Host: 127.0.0.1
-- Generation Time: Aug 16, 2017 at 07:24 AM
-- Server version: 10.1.25-MariaDB
-- PHP Version: 7.1.7

SET SQL_MODE = "NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO";
SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0;
START TRANSACTION;
SET time_zone = "+00:00";


/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@@CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@@CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION=@@COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
/*!40101 SET NAMES utf8mb4 */;

Because this top section was missing in my sql document. Then the import was successful. I hope this helps someone else too.