Error: MySQL server has gone away

I'm getting a MySQL error about once in every 10,000 times of using my Yii application. Looking at the error, it seems to me that if my table ("game") is not available, I would get the exception EVERY time the app is run.

Ideas? Here's the error (newlines added for readability)

[error] [system.db.CDbCommand] Error in querying
SQL: SELECT * FROM `game` `t` WHERE `t`.`app_url`=:yp0 LIMIT 1

2010/12/21 20:10:06 [error] [exception.CDbException] exception
'CDbException' with message 'CDbCommand failed to execute the SQL
statement: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone
away' in /home/tim/src/yii/framework/db/CDbCommand.php:387

Stack trace:
#0 /home/tim/src/yii/framework/db/CDbCommand.php(291):
CDbCommand->queryInternal('fetch', 2, Array)

#1 /home/tim/src/yii/framework/db/ar/CActiveRecord.php(1231):
CDbCommand->queryRow()

#2 /home/tim/src/yii/framework/db/ar/CActiveRecord.php(1366):
CActiveRecord->query(Object(CDbCriteria))

#3 etc. (stack trace of my code).