MySQL daemon won't start

Good suggestions, but no cigar:

sudo chown -R mysql /var/mysql
Password:
quicksilver:~ robbo$ mysqld_safe --user=mysql
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/mysql
rm: /var/mysql/mysql.sock: Permission denied
STOPPING server from pid file /var/mysql/quicksilver.lan.pid
081129 23:22:01 mysqld ended

Same behavior as before (the chown command was redundant because all the files showed mysql as owner).
I'm guessing mysqld_safe is a script and at some point it's trying to delete the /var/mysql/mysql.sock file and for some unknown reason can't. FRUSTRATING! It all worked just fine for years, starting up all by itself at system boot time.

I wonder if there's a log file somewhere that will explain what the problem is.

I had redirected the error log to another disk drive (in the my.conf file) and for some reason it wasn't getting written. I changed that to the default location and here's what I get in the terminal window:

mysqld_safe --user=mysql
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/mysql
rm: /var/mysql/mysql.sock: Permission denied
STOPPING server from pid file /var/mysql/quicksilver.lan.pid
081130 10:41:07 mysqld ended

(nothing new there)
And this is what's in the log file:

081130 10:41:07 mysqld started
081130 10:41:07 [Warning] Can't create test file /var/mysql/quicksilver.lower-test
081130 10:41:07 [Warning] Can't create test file /var/mysql/quicksilver.lower-test
081130 10:41:07 [Warning] One can only use the --user switch if running as root

081130 10:41:07 [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: Address already in use
081130 10:41:07 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on socket: /var/mysql/mysql.sock ?
081130 10:41:07 [ERROR] Aborting

081130 10:41:07 [Note] /usr/libexec/mysqld: Shutdown complete

081130 10:41:07 mysqld ended


Very odd, as I'm pretty sure I don't have another instance of mysqld running. As evidence, here's what I get when I try to connect with MySQL's GUI admin tool:

Could not connect to MySQL instance at localhost.
Error: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/mysql/mysql.sock' (61) (code 2002)

Here are the permissions for the socket:
srwxrwxrwx 1 mysql admin 0 Nov 29 23:12 mysql.sock

I'm logged in as an admin, but I'm not allowed to delete the socket:
rm /var/mysql/mysql.sock
rm: /var/mysql/mysql.sock: Permission denied
(which incidentally is the message mysqld_safe prints when it tries to start)
I deleted the socket using sudo once before and it didn't change anything.

Here's the output of ls -al /var/mysql:

total 41416
drwxr-xr-x 22 mysql admin 748 Nov 29 23:12 .
drwxr-xr-x 35 root wheel 1190 Nov 29 23:05 ..
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql admin 6148 Dec 2 2004 .DS_Store
drwx------ 27 mysql admin 918 May 30 2008 MailStewardProDB
drwx------ 14 mysql admin 476 May 24 2007 SharedMedia
drwx------ 8 mysql admin 272 Aug 12 2006 drs
drwx------ 165 mysql admin 5610 Nov 8 18:38 flagNtag
drwx------ 5 mysql admin 170 Sep 13 2004 home_automation
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql admin 25088 Sep 11 2004 ib arch_log0000000000
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql admin 5242880 Nov 19 08:23 ib_logfile0
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql admin 5242880 Sep 11 2004 ib_logfile1
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql admin 10485760 Nov 19 08:23 ibdata1
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql admin 338 Dec 3 2006 localhost.err
drwxrwx--- 51 mysql admin 1734 Jul 18 2006 mysql
srwxrwxrwx 1 mysql admin 0 Nov 29 23:12 mysql.sock
drwx------ 27 mysql admin 918 Sep 10 2007 phpmyadmin
drwx------ 14 mysql admin 476 Dec 27 2007 pim
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql admin 189926 Nov 30 13:46 quicksilver.lan.err
drwx------ 14 mysql admin 476 Sep 12 2004 sg_coalition
drwx------ 6 mysql admin 204 May 9 2007 test
drwx------ 92 mysql admin 3128 Apr 6 2008 weed_bug
drwx------ 24 mysql admin 816 Aug 23 2007 x2web

I don't see any problems here.

OMG! This worked:

sudo mysqld_safe --user=mysql

Interestingly, even though the database is working, the response to the above command was:

Password:
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/mysql

now it's just sitting there waiting for input (no shell prompt), and I can type stuff and nothing happens until I hit Ctrl-Z:

;
show databases;
^C
^Z
[1]+ Stopped sudo mysqld_safe --user=mysql

What's that about?
And I wonder if mysqld will auto-start at boot time like it always used to.

Anyway, thanks for getting me this far!
The only thing in the error log is this:

081130 17:34:12 mysqld started
081130 17:34:12 [Warning] Setting lower case_tablenames=2 because file system for /var/mysql/ is case insensitive
081130 17:34:13 InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 0 2723749

(which I assume is good)