Spatial Index in MySQL - ERROR - Cannot get geometry object from data you send to the GEOMETRY field

Question

I am new to the whole 'spatial index' thing, but it seems to be the best solution for filtering based on latitude/longitude. So I added a column to my table:

So I created a geometry field:

  ALTER TABLE `addresses` ADD `point` POINT NOT NULL 

And then I tried to add an index:

  ALTER TABLE `addresses` ADD SPATIAL INDEX ( `point` ) 

But I get an error:

  #1416 - Cannot get geometry object from data you send to the GEOMETRY field

What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

OK I found the solution: Can't create a spatial index if some of the column fields contain no data. After running

  UPDATE `addresses` SET `point` = POINT( lng, lat )

Everything worked fine.

Answer 2

I had this same error (Cannot get geometry object from data you send to the GEOMETRY field) but when trying to import spatial data from a mysql dump. I found that some rows had "null" (X is null or Y is null) spatial data even though the column was "NOT NULL"..

Check if you have the same problem as I'm describing with this SQL:

SELECT id FROM locations WHERE X(coordinates) IS NULL OR Y(coordinates) IS NULL;

If you have some rows then this is what worked for me:

UPDATE locations SET coordinates = POINT(0,0) WHERE X(coordinates) IS NULL OR Y(coordinates) IS NULL;

Then try your mysqldump (or from phpmyadmin) and import again.