ERROR 2006 (HY000): MySQL server has gone away

The global update and the my.cnf settings didn't work for me for some reason. Passing the max_allowed_packet value directly to the client worked here:

mysql -h <hostname> -u username -p --max_allowed_packet=1073741824 <databasename> < db.sql

You can increase Max Allowed Packet

SET GLOBAL max_allowed_packet=1073741824;

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/server-system-variables.html#sysvar_max_allowed_packet

max_allowed_packet=64M

Adding this line into my.cnf file solves my problem.

This is useful when the columns have large values, which cause the issues, you can find the explanation here.

On Windows this file is located at: "C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6"

On Linux (Ubuntu): /etc/mysql