The following is the beginners option. This should work on most share hosting.

When using Drupal your browser returns the following error

Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet'

The most likely cause of this error is your MySQL server. If you're new to Drupal think of MySQL server as a database.

Steps to fix this
Install the 'drupal_tweaks' module http://drupal.org/project/drupal_tweaks

Using this module increase the 'max_allowed_packet' memory limit. To do that go to http://your-domain-name-here.com/admin/drupal_tweaks

Follow instructions on this page. If needed read more in the module README.txt file.

Note: If it doesn't work redo above steps with more memory. For example: 2M, 4M, 8M, ... 128M and so on. The 'M' stands for MEGABYTE make sure you have enough memory available before increasing to much. If unsure ask your hosting provider.