In my case, the issue seems to be related to the fact the field is
empty. All of the fields in all of the records prior to the problem
record, and all of the fields on the problem record prior to the
problem field, have proper data values. The field causing the problem,
on the record causing the problem, is empty (represented in the data
file by consecutive tabs).

Are there known issues in MySQL WRT how LOAD DATA INFILE handles
missing values?

Ted