Database error #2002 can not connect local mysql server to socket through '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock'(2) on mac os x 10.9.2

Question

Dear Fellas:
I received "database error #2002 can not connect local mysql server to socket through '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock'(2)" on mac os x 10.9.2.
mysql info:
ps -ef | grep mysql
    0    66     1   0 11:06AM ??         0:00.04 /bin/sh /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql
   74   225    66   0 11:06AM ??         0:02.50 /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld --basedir=/usr/local/mysql --datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data --plugin-dir=/usr/local/mysql/lib/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/usr/local/mysql/data/Chuans-MacBook-Pro-2.local.err --pid-file=/usr/local/mysql/data/Chuans-MacBook-Pro-2.local.pid --socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
  501   952   947   0  3:52PM ttys000    0:00.00 grep mysql
Please help!!

Answer 1

Fascinated and guessing:
Something related to sock(2) because that's not part of your copied info. I'm thinking you've doubled up on sockets and the second socket doesn't exist, meaning you should be connecting to the first socket "mysqld.sock" whether automatic or not.
I've only used GUI tools on purpose, so does this mean you've already got MySQL running and you tried to launch it again manually? Perhaps you already have one instance of a db and you're trying to launch a second instance, and the two can't coexist with a single user local db?
Assuming this is all local, I'd shut down the db service and restart it, out of hand. I've seen similar messages when I set the db to start up on boot, and it didn't finish shutting down when I tried to restart it manually. Usually the GUI won't let me turn it on because it reports it's already running, but in that case it hadn't finished performing what the GUI was reporting.
Just speculating.