If you’re getting an error that reads “ERROR 1229 (HY000): Variable ‘event_scheduler’ is a GLOBAL variable and should be set with SET GLOBAL” in MySQL, it’s probably because you’re trying to set the event_scheduler system variable, but you’re not specifying it as a global variable.

The event_scheduler variable is a global variable and so we must specify it as a global variable.

To fix this issue, specify it as a global variable when setting it’s value.

Example of Error

Here’s an example of code that produces the error:

SET @@event_scheduler = ON;

Result:

ERROR 1229 (HY000): Variable 'event_scheduler' is a GLOBAL variable and should be set with SET GLOBAL

The error message is reasonably self explanatory. We got the error because the event_scheduler variable is a global variable but we didn’t specify it as such.

Solution

The solution is easy – specify the variable as a global variable. We have a couple of ways of doing this.

One way is like this:

SET GLOBAL event_scheduler = ON;

Result:

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

This time there was no error.

Another way to do it is like this:

SET @@GLOBAL.event_scheduler = ON;

Result:

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Both methods set the variable as a global variable.

We can also set it to 1 or 0, which is the same as setting it to ON and OFF respectively.