native code=1030 ** Got error 139 from storage engine

Recently in one of my application logs I see insert failing with "native code=1030 ** Got error 139 from storage engine" error, database was in production for more than 2 years and never see this error. This seems to be simple problem but due to its nature it may affect after you already have a running database in production which is in my case. This is storage engine specific error, InnoDB.
This is problem related to innodb row size limitations and storage of tablespace on disks.
In short InnoDB gives this error when it can't store all variable length column for a given row on single database page. So,

What is database page?
What is InnoDB row size limit?
How database page relate to row length?

Database pages are the internal basic structure to organize the data in the database files. The data file you define in configuration file logically concatenated to form the tablespace, The tablespace consists of database pages with default size 16 K. ( In Mysql 5.6 it is possible to change the page size to 4k or 8k in addition to original size 16k by putting  innodb_page_size=n variable in configuration file or you can set –innodb-page-size=n when starting mysqld, Previously, it could be done by recompiling the engine with a different value for UNIV_PAGE_SIZE_SHIFT and UNIV_PAGE_SIZE.) 

 Mysql store two rows on single page of 16 K, So the maximum row length, except for variable-length columns (VARBINARY, VARCHAR, BLOB and TEXT), is slightly less than half of a database page. That is, the maximum row length is about 8000 bytes. LONGBLOB and LONGTEXT columns must be less than 4GB, and the total row length, including BLOB and TEXT columns, must be less than 4GB.
If a row length is less than half a page long ~ 8000 bytes, all of it is stored locally within the single database page. If it exceeds half a page, variable-length columns are chosen for external off-page storage until the row fits within half a page. For a column chosen for off-page storage, InnoDB stores the first 768 bytes locally in the row, and the rest externally into overflow pages.

Now the real problem comes now, if you have more than 10 columns of variable length type TEXT,BLOB and each column exceeding database page size then InnoDB needs 768 x 11 = 8448 bytes to store variable lenght columns not counting other fixed length columns. This exceeds the limit and therefore you get the error. 

Few suggestions to solve this issue:

1. Upgrade to Barracuda format : Barracuda file format use 20 bytes of variables length columns on single database page rather than 768 bytes. so now more data in a row can be stored on a page without any size error.

SET GLOBAL innodb_file_format=Barracuda; 

SET GLOBAL innodb_file_per_table=ON; 

ALTER TABLE (your table) ROW_FORMAT=COMPRESSED;

mysql> show table status like 'company_info'\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           Name: company_info
         Engine: InnoDB
        Version: 10
     Row_format: Compact
           Rows: 13
 Avg_row_length: 32768
    Data_length: 425984
Max_data_length: 0
   Index_length: 32768
      Data_free: 0
 Auto_increment: 39
    Create_time: 2013-01-11 17:49:55
    Update_time: NULL
     Check_time: NULL
      Collation: latin1_swedish_ci
       Checksum: NULL
 Create_options:
        Comment: InnoDB free: 0 kB
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


mysql> alter table company_info row_format=compressed;
Query OK, 22 rows affected (0.83 sec)
Records: 22  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> show table status like 'company_info'\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           Name: company_info
         Engine: InnoDB
        Version: 10
     Row_format: Compact
           Rows: 13
 Avg_row_length: 31507
    Data_length: 409600
Max_data_length: 0
   Index_length: 32768
      Data_free: 0
 Auto_increment: 39
    Create_time: 2013-01-11 18:36:45
    Update_time: NULL
     Check_time: NULL
      Collation: latin1_swedish_ci
       Checksum: NULL
 Create_options: row_format=COMPRESSED
        Comment: InnoDB free: 0 kB
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

2. Limit the seize of variable length column, that might need change at application side.
3. Limit table to have upto 10 columns of variable length type.
4. Upgrade to latest mysql version 5.6 which have flexibility setting default database page size of 16K with innodb_page_size variable.