spring-boot web app loses ability to connect to MySQL / RDS after a while

Question

I have a normal spring boot 1.2.x web app with an embedded Tomcat 7.x container and connected to an RDS instance (running MySQL 5.6). If the application is idle for a period

Answer 1

Try using this as well

spring.datasource.test-while-idle=true
spring.datasource.validation-interval=5000