PDO::__construct(): MySQL server has gone away - php

Question

this seems to be a common issue, and I've read a lot about it tried to use 'ini_set' to change time outs and still getting this error after only 5 seconds. below is a sample of my code to show the flow between classes.
the thing that i'm most confused about is that it throws this warning after 5 seconds (even after a page refresh), but it still retrieves the data from the database.
require('../cfg/config.php');
class Process {
/**
* #var PDO
*/
private $conn = null;
/**
* #var PDOException
*/
public $error = null;
private $host = DB_SERVER;
private $user = DB_USER;
private $pass = DB_PASS;
private $db = DB_NAME;
public function __construct() {
ini_set('mysql.connect_timeout', 300);
ini_set('default_socket_timeout', 300);
$this->connect();
}
private function connect() {
$dsn = 'mysql:host=' . $this->host . ';dbname=' . $this->db;
$options = [
PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT => true,
PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION
];
try {
$this->conn = new PDO($dsn, $this->user, $this->pass, $options);
} catch(PDOException $e) {
$this->error = $e->getMessage();
}
return $this->conn;
}
public function query($sql, $params = null) {
preg_match('/SELECT/', $sql) ? $select = true : $select = false;
$connect = $this->conn->getAttribute(PDO::ATTR_CONNECTION_STATUS);
echo "CONNECTION STATUS::: " . $connect;
if($this->error == null) {
$query = $this->conn->prepare($sql);
$query->execute($params);
$query ? (!$select ? $results = true : $results = $query->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC))
: $results = false;
} else {
$results = $this->error;
}
return $results;
}
}
class Arrays {
public $family = [];
/**
* #var \Process
*/
private $db;
public function __construct() {
$this->db = new Process();
}
public function setFamily() {
$a = [];
$sql = "SELECT familyNick, familyName FROM budget.family ORDER BY familyOrder";
$query = $this->db->query($sql);
if($query != false && is_array($query)) {
foreach($query as $k => $v) {
$a[$v['familyNick']] = $v['familyName'];
}
}
$this->family = $a;
}
/**
* #return array
*/
public function getFamily() {
if(empty($this->family) || !isset($this->family)) {
$this->setFamily();
}
return $this->family;
}
}
class Options {
public $family = [];
/**
* #var \Arrays
*/
private $arrays;
public function __construct() {
$this->arrays = new Arrays();
}
public function setFamily() {
$this->family = $this->arrays->getFamily();
}
public function getFamilyOptions() {
if(empty($this->family)) {
$this->setFamily();
}
$options = [];
foreach($this->family as $famNick => $famName) {
$options[] = "<option class='family' value='$famNick'>" . $famName . "</option>";
}
return $options;
}
}
$test = new Options();
$family = $test->getFamilyOptions();
var_dump($family);
i'm certain there are various design flaws to this code. i'm just concerned about the PDO warning at this point.

Answer 1

for what i was trying to accomplish simply removing
ATTR_PERSISTENT => true
from the option array did the trick!