i'm using the mysqli approach as well and got the same error when I created another instance of mysqli before closing the first instance. So its important to use close()
before starting the same piece of code. For example:
$DBH = getDBH();
$qSelect = $DBH->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ?");
$qSelect->bind_param("s", $username);
$qSelect->close(); // <--- use close before calling the same function( wich contains $DBH code) again;