INFORMATION_SCHEMA  Selection Error
I find that error particularly disturbing because MySQL introduced INFORMATION_SCHEMA with the introduction of MySQL 5.0. @gbn's answer shows that this bug


goes back to MySQL 5.0.16
was reported on ANY operating having this
was based on the error happening in the IBM AIX 5.3 ML2 Operating System
was closed 2006-01-26


MySQL's definition of a database is simply a subfolder under datadir.

Now, here is why I find the error particularly disturbing: The INFORMATION_SCHEMA database is not supposed to be a manifested folder under datadir.

For example


datadir is /var/lib/mysql
You have two databases: db1 and db2


Go to the OS and run the following:

cd /var/lib/mysql
ls -l


You will see several folders:


mysql
db1
db2
test (since MySQL default installs a test database)
. (current dir)
.. (parent dir)


In mysql, when you do SHOW DATABASES;, you should not see . and ... The source code would have made sure of that. Now, where is INFORMATION_SCHEMA? Guess what? All tables in the INFORMATION_SCHEMA are temp tables and use the memory storage engine. Also note that you do not a see a folder called INFORMATION_SCHEMA. Now, check out the definition of INFORMATON_SCHEMA.TABLES:

mysql&gt; use information_schema
Database changed
mysql&gt; show create table tables\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: TABLES
Create Table: CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE `TABLES` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_TYPE` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `ENGINE` varchar(64) DEFAULT NULL,
  `VERSION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `ROW_FORMAT` varchar(10) DEFAULT NULL,
  `TABLE_ROWS` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `AVG_ROW_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `DATA_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `MAX_DATA_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `INDEX_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `DATA_FREE` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `AUTO_INCREMENT` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CREATE_TIME` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
  `UPDATE_TIME` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHECK_TIME` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
  `TABLE_COLLATION` varchar(32) DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHECKSUM` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CREATE_OPTIONS` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  `TABLE_COMMENT` varchar(2048) NOT NULL DEFAULT ''
) ENGINE=MEMORY DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8
1 row in set (0.05 sec)


I lay full blame for this error on the source code because just as mysql bypasses . and .. as special case folders that are not to be considered databases, INFORMATION_SCHEMA is supposed to be considered a s special case folder as well, a special case folder that does not have a manifested file under the datadir.

I would highly recommend just upgrading MySQL to the latest version because, as @gbn found, there was a bug report but it is marked as closed. This could only happen


if you are still running a very old version of mysql
this situation was not properly handled in the source code for the Ubuntu OS


@gbn gets a +1 from me for finding the bug report which helped me look a little deeper