sort_buffer_size error, or 1034?, I think it's erroring wrong

[Peter J Milanese]

Greetings-

I have the binary dist of 4.0.20 running on a fairly adequate box
(dualxeon,6gbRAM).

I try to alter a table which has 733k rows and get the following:


mysql> ALTER TABLE `CPULoad` CHANGE `TIME` `TIME` VARCHAR( 24 ) NOT NULL;
ERROR 1034: sort_buffer_size is to small

'Huh?' I say........

mysql> select @@sort_buffer_size;
+--------------------+
| @@sort_buffer_size |
+--------------------+
| 1073741816 |
+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


Any clue why this happens? It only shows up on tables where there is data.
Empty tables can be modified without problem.


Thanks-

P
-----------------------------------------------------
Peter J. Milanese	        The New York Public Library
System Administrator 	       mailto:peterm@stripped
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