"ping" not reconnecting in Python MySQLdb client interface

[John Nagle]

    I have some long-running Python programs that can be idle
for hours, and, of course, the MySQL connection times out.
So I call

	db.ping()

at the beginning of a new request cycle.  This should
reestablish the connection, but it doesn't:

   Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "rateapiv1.fcgi", line 60, in QuickSitetruthQuery
   db.ping() # reattach connection if necessary
   OperationalError: (2006, 'MySQL server has gone away')

The MySQL server is up, and new connection attempts succeed.

This problem was reported two years ago relative to TurboGears:

http://trac.turbogears.org/ticket/872

I suspect that MySQL has auto-reconnect turned off, but doesn't document this.

(MySQL 5 on Fedora Core)

				John Nagle