I've multiple machine with MySQL server running. A few Linux machines and a few Windows 2000 Server.

The clients (written in Visual Basic 6.0) are connecting via an ODBC (3.51.12) connection to the servers.

Two clients (which are running on the same server as the mysqld resides on) are losing their connection every friday night!
The clients are starting a few maintenance jobs at 3.00 in the morning.
The first query they execute is "SHOW TABLES".
A Run-time error is the result! (MySQL server has gone away).

Only two servers display this odd behaviour, all the other machines are running fine!

Does anyone have an idea what this might be?