Hi,

I have mostly myisam tables, only a few central used tables are innodb
to avoid table locks. The innodb tables are used like myisam tables e.g.
no explicit transactions.

I encountered a error
MySQL Error: Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction
MySQL Error No: 1205

My question is not what caused this timeout but how to handle it.

Should I raise innodb_lock_wait_timeout? What are the disadvantages?
What would be a sensible value?

Should I retry application side?
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/innodb-error-handling.html
says

...snip
Both deadlocks and lock wait timeouts are normal on busy servers and it
is necessary for applications to be aware that they may happen and
handle them by retrying.
snap...

But why is retrying better than raising the value?

So what is better, adjusting the timeout or retrying application side
and why?
--
Kind Regards, Markus Falb