Changing username - DB error
 

Hi there,
our forums have approximately 250k members. Whenever I am trying to change a username of a member, the process takes unusually long (compared to, for example, changing the password or email address). Eventually, I get an error 2006 - MySQL server has gone away.

Any idea why this is? It does not matter whether the user has 10 posts or 5000. What is it about that operation that is so different than updating other user fields?

I have only very selected few plugins running, none of which affect user accounts.

Thanks for any insights.