Akonadi won't start

Hi all,

I've been using kde on this machine for several months, now.  But suddenly, 
akonadi won't start:


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mdiehl@mikeworkstation:~$ akonadictl start

Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
mdiehl@mikeworkstation:~$ org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Starting up the Akonadi Server...
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: database server stopped unexpectedly
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Database process exited unexpectedly during initial connection!
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: executable: "/usr/sbin/mysqld-akonadi"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: arguments: ("--defaults-file=/home/mdiehl/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf", "--datadir=/home/mdiehl/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/", "--socket=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket", "--pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid")
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: stdout: ""
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: stderr: "mysqld-akonadi: [ERROR] Failed to open required defaults file: /home/mdiehl/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf\nmysqld-akonadi: [ERROR] Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted!\n"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: exit code: 1
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: process error: "Unknown error"
mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket' (2)'
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: '/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket' exists!
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Failed to remove runtime connection config file
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Shutting down AkonadiServer...
org.kde.pim.akonadicontrol: Application '/usr/bin/akonadiserver' exited normally...
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Any ideas would be most appreciated.

Mike.