Issue with Storage Engine

Question

Just got the below error in one of the slave. I just Googled it and changed the variable myisam_data_pointer_size from 4 to 6.

Somehow, my ALTER TABLE was successful.

• Can you please let me know whether my approach was right. I am not sure on this variable?

• Will this cause any performance issue. should I roll back it ?

  130208 9:40:19 [ERROR] Slave: Error 'The table '#sql-19fc_3f8acc6' is full' on query. Default database: 'registry'. Query: 'alter table enom_log_2012_12_03 add responsedatatype char(1) not null after requestdata', Error_code: 1114 130208 9:40:19 [ERROR] Error running query, slave SQL thread aborted. Fix the problem, and restart the slave SQL thread with "SLAVE START". We stopped at log 'pumpkin-bin.008662' position 411952695

Problem Description

Check for the Alerts in Errorlog for any errors and failures. Check if MySQL is up? if not verify if the process was Normal shutdown.

Advice

mysql> SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM registry LIKE 'enom_log_2012_12_03'\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           Name: enom_log_2012_12_03
         Engine: MyISAM
        Version: 9
     Row_format: Dynamic
           Rows: 1786679
 Avg_row_length: 2403
    Data_length: 4293600396
Max_data_length: 4294967295
   Index_length: 60999680
      Data_free: 0
 Auto_increment: 1786680
    Create_time: 2013-02-06 15:19:07
    Update_time: 2013-02-06 15:22:16
     Check_time: 2013-02-06 15:26:35
      Collation: utf8_general_ci
       Checksum: NULL
 Create_options:
        Comment:
1 row in set (0.00 sec)




mysql> show global variables like '%tmp%';
+----------------+-----------------------+
| Variable_name  | Value                 |
+----------------+-----------------------+
| bdb_tmpdir     | /usr/local/mysql/tmp/ |
| max_tmp_tables | 32                    |
| tmp_table_size | 8388608               |
| tmpdir         | /usr/local/mysql/tmp  |
+----------------+-----------------------+

mysql> show global variables like '%myisam%';
+---------------------------------+---------------+
| Variable_name                   | Value         |
+---------------------------------+---------------+
| myisam_data_pointer_size        | 4             |--before changing it was 4 .. i changed it to 6
| myisam_max_extra_sort_file_size | 2147483648    |
| myisam_max_sort_file_size       | 2147483647    |
| myisam_recover_options          | OFF           |
| myisam_repair_threads           | 1             |
| myisam_sort_buffer_size         | 4194304       |
| myisam_stats_method             | nulls_unequal |
+---------------------------------+---------------