How to change max_allowed_packet size

Question

I am having a problem with BLOB fields in my MySQL database - when uploading files larger than approx 1MB I get an error Packets larger than max_allowed_packet are not

Answer 1

If getting this error while performing a backup, max_allowed_packet can be set in the my.cnf particularly for mysqldump.

[mysqldump]
max_allowed_packet=512M

I kept getting this error while performing a mysqldump and I did not understand because I had this set in my.cnf under the [mysqld] section. Once I figured out I could set it for [mysqldump] and I set the value, my backups completed without issue.