Script ends saying : MySQL server has gone away

[Patrick Plante]

Hi everyone, I made a script that works, but the 'job' I'm asking is taking too much time or ressources, so the script ends up telling this : MySQL server has gone away

I have a folder called 'files' on my FTP in which all files submitted by users are saved. When a user saves a files under his account, a new row is created in the DB with 'filepath' and 'filesize' in the new entry, the upload then proceeds to that 'files' folder, so the user has all his files in the MySQL database that refers to the actual file on the FTP.

I then created a script that would let me delete a user, but before removing the user from the DB, I want to make a copy of all his files in a new directory (files_backup/<user_id>), so it's not cluttering the 'files' folder. I can afterwards copy and delete the 'files_backup' to a more decent backup place elsewhere.

So, everything worked fine up until I arrived at users that had many files, I ended up getting 'MySQL server has gone away' after about 90 seconds.

Is this a memory issue when it copies files? A time thing? How can I make sure to get it proceed to the end succesfully?

Thanks a lot!