title: MySQL - Can aborting a query with Ctrl-C harm the table?
body: <p>Some of my queries were taking way too long, including some <code>alter table</code> queries, so I pressed <strong>Ctrl-c</strong> to abort them and continue with other matters. </p>
  
  <p>One that I aborted was <code>alter table labs modify ID int(11) first</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Now quite simple queries like <code>alter table labs drop column ID</code> are taking forever. I've been waiting for over 25 minutes. There <em>are</em> millions of records, but I've run similar <code>alter table</code> queries on the same table that only take a few seconds.</p>
  
  <p>Can aborting queries harm the column that the query was operating on? If so, how can I recover from the problem?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong>: I <em>am</em> nuking a primary-key column. Could that have something to do with the insanely long running time?</p>