MySQL: Errcode: 24 when using LOCK TABLES
While running into MySQL’s open files limit will manifest itself into various error messages, this is the standard one that you’ll receive during a mysqldump:
mysqldump: Got error: 29: File './databasename/tablename.MYD' not found
(Errcode: 24) when using LOCK TABLES</pre>
The best way to get to the bottom of the error is to find out what it means:
$ perror 24 OS error code 24: Too many open files
There’s two ways to fix the problem. First, if you find that you only hit the limit during mysqldumps and never during normal database operation, just add --single-transaction to your mysqldump command line options. This will cause mysql to keep only one table open at a time.
However, if this happens while backups aren’t running, you may want to increase the open_files_limit in your MySQL configuration file. By default, the variable is set to 1,024 open files.
For further reading: