There's a bug in ActiveRecord that causes it to completely break down and cry if a MySQL connection stays idle for too long and gets disconnected by the server.

To fix it, you just have to set auto_reconnect=true in my.cnf, or set the option when you connect to the DB.

In the Ruby MySQL bindings, you can use the options() method on a Mysql class instance:

• instance.options("auto_reconnect", true)

Helpful Links

• http://www.tmtm.org/en/mysql/ruby/

• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/mysql-reconnect.html

• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/mysql-real-connect.html

• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/option-files.html

• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/mysql-options.html