Comment 15 for bug 573318

@thecapsaicinkid is your file readable ?

because if you look at the pre-start script it makes the following check :

pre-start script
    #Sanity checks
    [ -r $HOME/my.cnf ]
    [ -d /var/run/mysqld ] || install -m 755 -o mysql -g root -d /var/run/mysqld
    LC_ALL=C BLOCKSIZE= df --portability /var/lib/mysql/. | tail -n 1 | awk '{ exit ($4<4096) }'
end script

What you can do is :

su - mysql
export HOME=/etc/mysql

and try to run the command and check which one return false ( something != 0)

ex:
$[ -r $HOME/my.cnf ]
$echo $?
0