diff --git a/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/buglist.cgi b/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/buglist.cgi
index c2d44de12dc..9638d9c0fb2 100755
--- a/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/buglist.cgi
+++ b/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/buglist.cgi
@@ -1397,10 +1397,6 @@ if ($serverpush) {
 # query performance.
 ReconnectToShadowDatabase();
 
-# Tell MySQL to store temporary tables on the hard drive instead of memory
-# to avoid "table out of space" errors on MySQL versions less than 3.23.2.
-SendSQL("SET OPTION SQL_BIG_TABLES=1") if Param('expectbigqueries');
-
 # Normally, we ignore SIGTERM and SIGPIPE (see globals.pl) but we need to
 # respond to them here to prevent someone DOSing us by reloading a query
 # a large number of times.
diff --git a/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/defparams.pl b/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/defparams.pl
index 30a7b5fc0aa..9fe4c186ec2 100644
--- a/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/defparams.pl
+++ b/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/defparams.pl
@@ -449,11 +449,6 @@ sub check_webdotbase {
     return "";
 }
 
-DefParam("expectbigqueries",
-         "If this is on, then we will tell mysql to <tt>set option SQL_BIG_TABLES=1</tt> before doing queries on bugs.  This will be a little slower, but one will not get the error <tt>The table ### is full</tt> for big queries that require a big temporary table.",
-         "b",
-         0);
-
 DefParam("emailregexp",
          'This defines the regexp to use for legal email addresses.  The default tries to match fully qualified email addresses.  Another popular value to put here is <tt>^[^@]+$</tt>, which means "local usernames, no @ allowed."',
          "t",
diff --git a/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/sanitycheck.cgi b/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/sanitycheck.cgi
index 706d7dff5ae..72a9137fd2c 100755
--- a/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/sanitycheck.cgi
+++ b/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/sanitycheck.cgi
@@ -49,8 +49,6 @@ UserInGroup("editbugs")
 print "Content-type: text/html\n";
 print "\n";
 
-SendSQL("set SQL_BIG_TABLES=1");
-
 my $offervotecacherebuild = 0;
 
 sub Status {