PHP Upload MySQL server has gone away

[dprichard]

I posted this in the PHP forum and then thought I should have posted this in the MySQL forum. 

 

I created an upload script which works fine with smaller files.  When I try to upload a larger file I get MySQL server has gone away.

 

???

 

I did a little research and saw that it may be the max_allowed_packet size on the MySQL server so I set it to 160000000, but I still get the same error.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[fenway]

There are a number of tutorials on breaking up large files... best situation is not to store these in the DB, though.

[dprichard]

Where do you draw the line for file size stored in a database?

[fenway]

I actually never store anything in the DB, but definitely below 1MB.

[dprichard]

Well, I am trying to make a document manager in PHP and MySQL and I asked around in the forums and was told that to secure the documents that I should put them in the database versus the files system.

 

I am using PHP 5 and MySQL 5.1 on Windows IIS 6.  I want the documents to only be accessed by authorized users and am kinda new to hand coding (Versus using my old crutch Dreamweaver). 

 

Is there a better way to do this in the file system, yet still secure them versus putting them in the database?

 

Thank you for any knowledge you can pass along!

[fenway]

Depends whom you're trying to secure them against... anyone with root access will have access anyway.  So how would anyone else "get at" the files, if they didn't know the path, which (obviously) to to a non-web accessible directory?