Could not set the file size of ./ibtmp1. Probably out of disk space

While having my daily specialty coffee from Latin America I got this error for one of my docker containers running MySQL. ERROR: ‘Could not set the file size of ./ibtmp1’. Suddenly the container failed to start and I could not understand why!

I reviewed the logs for my container:

docker logs <my_container_name>

2020-07-31T15:45:10.209380Z 0 [ERROR] InnoDB: Could not set the file size of './ibtmp1'. Probably out of disk space
2020-07-31T15:45:10.209437Z 0 [ERROR] InnoDB: Unable to create the shared innodb_temporary
2020-07-31T15:45:10.209486Z 0 [ERROR] InnoDB: Plugin initialization aborted with error Generic error
2020-07-31T15:45:10.725388Z 0 [Note] InnoDB: Removed temporary tablespace data file: "ibtmp1"
2020-07-31T15:45:10.725530Z 0 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' init function returned error.
2020-07-31T15:45:10.725673Z 0 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed.
2020-07-31T15:45:10.725770Z 0 [ERROR] Failed to initialize builtin plugins.
2020-07-31T15:45:10.725816Z 0 [ERROR] Aborting
2020-07-31T15:45:10.725871Z 0 [Note] Binlog end
2020-07-31T15:45:10.725996Z 0 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'CSV'
2020-07-31T15:45:10.727174Z 0 [Note] mysqld: Shutdown complete

Something strange ‘Could not set the file size of ‘./ibtmp1′. Probably out of disk space’

My computer disk space was fine with more than 20GB free space. But, then after a walk around my hood in NYC Moments I discovered this error was referring to my virtual space hard disk created by the docker engine which is used in the background. This was not my local computer’s hard disk space.

This solution worked for me:

docker-compose down
docker system prune
docker-compose up

I ran those three commands. This will prune all containers that not in used and might also reset your current containers. In my case I had to re-create MySQL database and tables. I need to make this better. Hope this solution for ‘Could not set the file size of ./ibtmp1’ error works for you. Remember to check out some cool coffee mugs and T-Shirt designs on my sister website