Can't create/write to file '/var/log/mariadb/mariadb.log'

I'm troubleshooting a MySQL no-start on CentOS 7 VM. It is a bit unusual to see this since we have not made any configuration changes. The manual start command was taken from systemd logging. The error is the age old: # /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --basedir=/usr 181221 17:42:49 mysqld_safe Logging to '/var/log/mariadb/mariadb.log'. 181221 17:42:49 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql /usr/bin/mysqld_safe_helper: Can't create/write to file '/var/log/mariadb/mariadb.log' (Errcode: 13) According to [Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 1061045](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1061045) , mysql:mysql needs the appropriate permissions, which we seem to have: [root@ftpit w]# ls -Al /var/log total 52764 ... drwxrwx--- 2 mysql mysql 4096 Aug 16 11:05 mariadb And: [root@ftpit w]# ls -Al /var/log/mariadb/ total 99852 -rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 102138776 Dec 21 17:16 mariadb.log And: [root@ftpit w]# grep mysql /etc/passwd mysql:x:27:27:MariaDB Server:/var/lib/mysql:/sbin/nologin I also tried g-w as shown in the bug report. Where should I look next for this error? Or how do I fix it?