MySQL error log says "Got timeout reading communication packets"

Symptoms

In some MySQL configurations, you may find that connections to databases continuously timeout and correspond to the following entries in the MySQL error log:

[Warning] Aborted connection to db: 'username_site' user: 'username_site' host: 'localhost' (Got timeout reading communication packets)

Description 

Timeouts reading communication packates are often caused by the incorrect wait_timeout value set in /etc/my.cnf.

wait_timeout=30

In the above example, connections would timeout every 30 seconds.

Workaround

Refer to the MySQL documentation for wait_timeout to ensure it's set to meet your server's needs.