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Have you ever encountered the error “Can’t initialize indexer process”?

SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1005 Can't create table'.\database_name\catalog_category_flat_store_1.frm' (errno: 150)

Sometimes I suddenly get this issue when re-indexing data and yesterday I ran into it once again. It took some minutes to detect and fix the problem. I think some of you may have experienced this error or maybe will get it someday. Thus I decide to post this quick tutorial and hope it helpful for you.

To solve the error “Can’t initialize indexer process” occurring when re-indexing data, you can take the following steps:

  • Delete all the .locks files from the var/locks folder.
  • Run the SQL Query below:

ALTER TABLE catalog_category_entity ENGINE=InnoDB;</span>
<span style="color: #464646; font-family: Arial;"> ALTER TABLE core_store ENGINE=InnoDB;</span>
<span style="color: #464646; font-family: Arial;"> 


Now the error is eliminated and you can continue processing your task. Let me know if my post helps you by dropping a comment below. Let’s come to Magento blog to get interesting tips in working with Magento framework!

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8 Comments

  1. ALTER TABLE catalog_category_entity ENGINE=INNODB; does not work – gives an error neither via phpmyadmin nor via mysql control line…

    • Hello Viktor,
      You can log in to your PhpMyAdmin, select your database that your Magento site is using. After that, click on the SQL tab and paste ALTER TABLE catalog_category_entity ENGINE=INNODB; on the SQ: query then click on Go button.
      Let me know if you have any other issues. Nice day!

  2. Lukas Novak Reply

    When I click on reindex in Product Attributes or Product Prices it is writting ‘Empty main table’. What should be the reason?

  3. the post saved me.
    but in my case, it was important to use InnoDB instead of INNODB in the query

    • Hi Stephan,
      I’ve changed INNODB to InnoDB as you said. Thank you for your comment!

  4. Hi Michael,

    Unfortunately this solution didnt worked for me.
    My error is: #1064 – You have an error in your SQL syntax;

    Do you have another solution for me? Im still having errors in my reindexing process.

    Kind Regards,
    Nils

    • Hi Nils,
      Your error information is too general. So it is difficult for me to answer your question. Could you provide me with the whole error message that you received?
      Thank for following my post!

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