I doubt that it is a problem with DBI/DBD::mysql, mainly because DBD::mysql is reporting that the server closed the connection. It sounds like somesort of timeout, too large of a packect, commands being sent out of order, or something else that causes the server to go away (segfault is a possibility too).

You might want to enable tracing on the serverside, to see why the connection is going away.

You can try also the DBD::mysql mailing list