Very slow TRUNCATE accompanied with "Server seems busy" on httpd log

I have this very simple table with only 35 rows on 5 simple columns (primary key on id auto increment, title (varchar), a bool, and 2 datetime). As we work in team, we import data from Google Docs, rephrase it as a SQL to do a TRUNCATE->LOCK TABLE WRITE->INSERT INTO (multiple lines)->UNLOCK TABLE at once. On other bigger, more complicated tables it works super fine, the whole process finishes within a second. But on this one, it always takes about 5~7 minutes to finish. The problem is that it triggers locks on other tables, and the system is basically down during this period.

While the system is down, I captured the >SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST; and found out that: - the TRUNCATE is taking a long time, with the status code "checking permissions" for more than 200 seconds. - for some reason, when this problem happens, the httpd log spits a "server seems busy..." and Apache freezes on all front instances.

I've tried to look for similar cases on the web in vain. It'd rea开发者_JS百科lly save our lives if anyone can give us a helpful insight on this one... Thanks!

• DB Server: m2.2xlarge instance @ EC2
• Front servers: m1.large instances @ EC2
• MySQL version: 5.0.77
• GUI client: phpmyadmin 3.2.3
• DB storage type: MyISAM

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That sounds very odd, have you tried doing a DROP TABLE and CREATE as a work around? This may help you to isolate the issue.