mysqld dead but subsys locked

When I did mysqld status:-

[root@databaseserver~]$ /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld status
mysqld dead but subsys locked

Later on I checked following:-

chkconfig:
[root@databaseserver~]$ /sbin/chkconfig --list mysqld
mysqld 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

File/Dir Permissions:

  • /var/lib/mysql owned by mysql:mysql
  • /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid owned by mysql:mysql

PID:
[root@databaseserver~]$ ls -lh /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 5 Mar 24 05:48 /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

Running Processes:
[root@databaseserver~]$ ps -ef | grep mysql
root 3126 1 0 Mar24 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --defaults-file=/etc/my.cnf --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
mysql 3162 3126 0 Mar24 ? 00:34:07 /usr/libexec/mysqld --defaults-file=/etc/my.cnf --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-locking --socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

Now: Server is up and running well since long. But still the mysqld gave me such status.

It’s MySQL 5.0.22 on RHEL release 5.1.

What is this error all about?

Ignorance is bliss!!