title: MySQL Server has gone away (not timeout)
body: <p>I've hunted thoroughly on SO and Google to try to resolve this but have not been able to.  I'm executing an INSERT at a certain part of my code, and PHP instantly fails the insert, reporting "MySQL server has gone away". Despite this notice, the MySQL server responds as normal for all other operations. Other inserts are working fine, and if I run the exact same query manually, it runs without a problem and inserts the data. MySQL is version 5.5.30 and PHP is version 5.4.6. The insert query is as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>INSERT INTO orders 
              SET userID = '80'
              , billing_addr = 'test_addr'
              , shipping_addr = 'test_addr'
              , ship_instructions = ''
              , shipping = 0
              , user_comments = ''
              , tax = 0
              , total = 0
              , admin_comments = ''
              , source_id = 13
              , billing_profile_id = 32
              , recurring = 'No'
              , total_raw_product_cost = 0
              , total_network_payout = 0
              , shipping_code = ''
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've restarted Apache, restarted MySQL, checked that the table is not crashed. There is no info sent to the MySQL log when this query fails.</p>
  
  <p>The PHP is a basic query but for completeness' sake, I've included it here.</p>
  
  <pre><code>if( db_query($sql) )
  {
      // do happy stuff because it worked
  }
  else
  {
      die("ERROR: UNABLE TO SAVE ORDER DATA &lt;!-- (" . $db_error . ") [" . $sql . "]--&gt;");
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong>
  I have another DB server that works fine with this same setup. I've tried matching the <code>my.cnf</code> files and restarting, with no effect. The only difference I can see between the working and non-working DB servers is that the working one is version 5.0.77 instead of 5.5.30.</p>