I don’t remember now exactly what the problem was, but at some point I discovered the AutoLink plugin was failing in Movable Type 5.01, filling the database with log entries till it grew many gigabytes.

[lib]# du -sh mysql/badgerh_*
7.8G mysql/badgerh_mt@002e5@002e01

This is the MySQL query I ran to clear out those log entries:

[lib]# mysql
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 6153153
Server version: 5.1.31 MySQL Community Server (GPL) by Remi
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.
mysql> use badgerh_mt.5.01
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A
Database changed
mysql> delete from mt_log where log_message like 'AutoLink died with%';
Query OK, 24797414 rows affected (51 min 6.40 sec)