the below entry, opening max connections for sql - was indeed a fix.
default is 151, and i now have been a solid 200 connections for a week with no issues.

in debian 11, i did the following :

sudo su -
mysql -D fog
SET GLOBAL max_connections = 512;

To make this a permanent solution, refer to the link in the previous post.

What I like to do is take a current working plugin, make a copy, and adjust for the needs.