Warning: Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' [#1647552]

Was modifying some menus, and started getting this error:

Warning: Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes query: INSERT INTO watchdog (uid, type, message, variables, severity, link, location, referer, hostname, timestamp) VALUES (49, 'php', '%message in %file on line %line.', 'a:4:{s:6:\"%error\";s:12:\"user warning\";s:8:\"%message\";s:1505240:\"Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes\nquery: UPDATE cache_update SET data = 'a:61:{s:7:\\"addthis\\";a:25:{s:4:\\"name\\";s:7:\\"addthis\\";s:4:\\"info\\";a:5:{s:4:\\"name\\";s:7:\\"AddThis\\";s:7:\\"version\\";s:11:\\"6.x-3.x-dev\\";s:7:\\"project\\";s:7:\\"addthis\\";s:9:\\"datestamp\\";s:10:\\"1312545732\\";s:16:\\"_info_file_ctime\\";i:1337986980;}s:9:\\"d in /home/webfiles/drupal-6.24/includes/database.mysqli.inc on line 134

It did not affect the public-facing view of the site, only admin pages.

I left it alone for a week or so hoping it would shake out, but it didn't. When I dug deeper, I saw that the error was referring to AddThis.

I disabled the AddThis module, and the error went away. I re-enabled the module, and the error did not return, so my site is ok for now. I just wanted to document this.

I understand from http://drupal.org/node/1427588 that "This problem is caused by Drupal sending through a request bigger than your MySQL server is configured to handle, but its usually not a bug in Drupal. Some default MySQL configurations simply have the max_allowed_packet set too low."

but others feel that this error can be triggered by a misbehaving module. I don't know if that's the case here.

Comments

Comment #1

memcinto CreditAttribution: memcinto commented 19 June 2012 at 15:28

Actually the error just came back, so scratch the "error is gone" part of the issue. I'm going to leave the module enabled for now, but will probably get rid of it at some point if there isn't a good solution.

Comment #2

stevector

he/him

CreditAttribution: stevector commented 20 June 2012 at 21:27

It's unlikely that your error is related to this module. As mentioned in http://drupal.org/node/1427588, you should instead increase your max_allowed_packet variable.

Comment #3

memcinto CreditAttribution: memcinto commented 9 November 2012 at 21:15

I think BOTH may be right: I'm sure that increasing the "max_allowed_packet" variable would correct the problem, AND the problem is being caused by the AddThis module. I recently re-enabled the module, because I was wondering if Devel was actually the problem (and Devel is disabled), and the site was fine for a few days, but then the error returned. And as soon as I disabled the module, bam, the error went away. So, obviously, and as you can see from the parameters of the error message, it IS the AddThis module that is triggering the error.

Comment #4

memcinto CreditAttribution: memcinto commented 16 November 2012 at 21:58

Same error with 6.x-3.0-beta2 as with 6.x-3.x-dev.

Comment #5

memcinto CreditAttribution: memcinto commented 21 November 2012 at 21:11

We upped the max_allowed_packet from 1MB to 8MB and are still getting the error (so I have disabled the module again). It looks to me like there is something wrong with the way the module is trying to serialize the data it is trying to watchdog.

Comment #6

ANB Solutions CreditAttribution: ANB Solutions commented 17 April 2013 at 15:11

Hi,

We had this on our site also, but with a different module. Changing the max_allowed_packet to a larger number helped, but after a few days it came back. The problem was that the module in question (plus a couple of others) was caching a large amount of data. The simple solution was to timetable a more regular cron process. Hopefully that will help you (or anyone else with the same problem as I guess/hope you've fixed this by now).