MySQL server has gone away

[sandykr09]

Help! I am getting a message when trying to go to the checkout area of the my site or the estimate shipping. www.bubbleshirtsetc.com It states that the MySQL server has gone away. Can someone please help me get my site back up and running.
Sandy Here is the prompt that I get and I have no idea how to fix the problem:

2006 MySQL server has gone away
in:
[select cd.categories_name from zen_categories c, zen_categories_description cd where c.parent_id = 0 and c.categories_id = cd.categories_id and cd.language_id='1' and c.categories_status=1]
2006 MySQL server has gone away
in:
[select count(*) as total from zen_sessions where sesskey = '51681b2665b932b9f66dacf2955a1fac']

[sandykr09]

[Mon Feb 25 06:31:21 2008] [error] [client 200.148.49.53] Invalid URI in request NICK lkjluerfpbc

This is one string from the error logs that I am getting. Most of the strings state about the same thing.

Please help

Thank You
Sandy

[sandykr09]

Now I can no longer get into the admin portion of my website. I get the error of MySQL gone away. I am at a loss as to what to do at this point.
Please help.
Sandy

[sandykr09]

I have no idea how to repair a database.

[DrByte]

This is usually not a database problem.

A message saying "MySQL server has gone away" means that something you're doing is taking too long to complete, and when it comes back to look up something in the database, the database has stopped waiting for you. This can happen for example when getting shipping quotes from a slow server.

You said you're getting this when waiting for shipping-estimates.
Which shipping module(s) do you have enabled?

[sandykr09]

Hi Dr Byte,
Thanks for the response. I was on the site last night keying in some orders to enable me to print out invoices, etc... and then all of the sudden I was unable to click on the proceed to checkout. It would take forever and then I would get the error that I have stated above.
I have disabled my Paypal until I can figure out why the orders won't come back and then I had put USPS to true to begin using that and it was after that that it started happening. I tried to remove that as well to see if it would help, but so far now I am at the point that I can't even get to my admin to try to do something else to fix it. Any help is really appreciated. I am no tech person.
Thank You
Sandy

[sandykr09]

I forgot to tell you I have only UPS shipping module enabled now.
Thank You
Sandy

[supersnow]

I am having the exact same problem, with estimates and with checkout.

And I noticed on the USPS website last night that they are bringing out a new large flat rate box as of March 3. I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

I remember last year with the postage fee changes there was a lot of problems and a lot of sites went down.

I have turn USPS off at the moment and it has fixed the problem but I have a lot of orders that are international and UPS is just too expensive so we will most likely loose sales, which is not good.

Has anyone go a patch for the USPS shipping module.

[sandykr09]

I was using USPS also, but since disabled it to see if it would fix the problem. It did not.
Does anyone think that I should disable UPS and try to install it again? I am not sure what to do!!! I am losing sales already!

[DrByte]

It's always wise to have a secondary shipping choice all set up and ready to enable in case your primary one has a problem ... perhaps a Table Rate or Per Weight/Item setup, etc.
At least you could use that method to offer close-if-not-perfect shipping rate choices until the main shipping system comes back online again.