MySQL 4.0.17 data scrambles, not-null fields become null, etc.

I'm having the most bizarre problem with PHP/MySQL that I've ever
faced and it's an urgent matter (of course) to try to fix it ASAP.

We have one record inserted into a table with 75 columns, whereby half
of the columns are not-null, but for some bizarre reason, the fields
are null. The rest of the columns that are null are completely
scrambled (e.g. "first_name" is in "address2", "fax" is in "url", "url"
is in "last_name", etc.)

This just recently occurred and seems to have no history otherwise. It
occurred sometime on Saturday when the record was inserted but logs
indicate no unusual activity at that time.

Has anyone seen this before and found a way to prevent it from
occurring again?

Thanx
Phil

Re: MySQL 4.0.17 data scrambles, not-null fields become null, etc.

> I'm having the most bizarre problem with PHP/MySQL that I've ever
>faced and it's an urgent matter (of course) to try to fix it ASAP.
>
>We have one record inserted into a table with 75 columns, whereby half
>of the columns are not-null, but for some bizarre reason, the fields
>are null. The rest of the columns that are null are completely
>scrambled (e.g. "first_name" is in "address2", "fax" is in "url", "url"
>is in "last_name", etc.)
>
>This just recently occurred and seems to have no history otherwise. It
>occurred sometime on Saturday when the record was inserted but logs
>indicate no unusual activity at that time.
>
>Has anyone seen this before and found a way to prevent it from
>occurring again?

I suspect that something got badly corrupted. Things to try, in order:

(1) Shut down and restart mysqld. See if the problem remains. Possibly
the table definition got corrupted in mysqld's cache.
(2) Reboot the system. See if the problem remains. Possibly the table
definition got corrupted in the OS cache.
(3) CHECK and if necessary REPAIR the table. Possibly the table got
corrupted on disk.

Did you recently upgrade mysqld without doing a mysqldump/restore
on the table, or migrate the table by copying files from different
architectures?

Gordon L. Burditt