Why is this MYSQL statement giving me an error?
Note that when you do LOAD DATA INFILE, MySQL is looking for that file on the server - not on your client machine.
If you want to use LOAD DATA INFILE to load a file that is on the client machine (and not the server machine), you must use LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE.
From the MySQL manual:
For security reasons, when reading text files located on the server, the filesmust either reside in the database directory or be readable by all. Also, to useLOAD DATA INFILE on server files, you must have the FILE privilege. For non-LOCALload operations, if the secure_file_priv system variable is set to a nonemptydirectory name, the file to be loaded must be located in that directory.
Hmmm...probably a stupid question, but are there any invisible characters in the string '/home.../ids-ads.txt'?