It’s a sunny day when suddenly… Working with Drupal 8 on MAMP 3.5 you could get this error:
Drupal\Core\Database\DatabaseExceptionWrapper: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away: CREATE TABLE {cache_config}
To solve it, create a file called my.cnf in /Applications/MAMP/conf and enter:
[mysqld] max_allowed_packet=64M
64M solved for me but you could have to increase it.
Restart MAMP and let’s start to pray. The error is gone, the sun is back.
References
https://www.drupal.org/node/2682187
https://www.drupal.org/node/1059718#comment-5914678
https://www.drupal.org/node/984112#comment-4694182
http://stackoverflow.com/a/8062538/1252920