We have a MySQL table that has an auto-incrementing field set as an INT (11). This table pretty much stores a list of jobs that are running in an application. At any given moment during the lifetime of the application, the table could well contain thousands of entries or be completely empty (i.e. everything has finished).

The field is not foreign-keyed to anything else.

The auto-increment seems to randomly reset itself to zero, although we have never actually been able to trap the reset.

The problem becomes evident because we see the auto-increment field get up to, say, 600,000 records or so and then a while later the auto-increment field seems to be running in the low 1000's.

It is almost as if the auto-increment resets itself if the table is empty.

Is this possible and if it is, how do I turn it off or change the manner in which it resets?

If it isn't, does anyone have an explanation of why it might be doing this?

Thanks!