title: Can latency cause PHP mysql DB connections to build up?
body: <p>I use the following common PHP code in all a site's scripts to connect to the DB:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$con = mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS) or trigger_error('Unable to connect to database');
  @mysql_select_db(DB_NAME) or trigger_error('Unable to select database ' . DB_NAME);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've had a site running with this code for close to a year, without any issues that I could see. Today however, my host experienced some 'latency' with their DB connection. After the latency period ended, I discovered that my site was unable to connect to the DB, because the max users limit was reached for mySQL.</p>
  
  <p>I'm guessing the problem is, this code kicks off an attempt to connect, and since there is a latency issue, and not a connection issue, connection attempts start piling up. Then, once the latency period ended, I now had a ton of connections.</p>
  
  <p>So, my question is, how do I prevent something like this from happening in the future? Is there some sort of shorter timeout period I can use with the connect function?</p>
  
  <p>I realize mysql_ is being deprecated, and this should be updated to use mysqli_, however that is not the problem, I believe.</p>