GIJOE:
I did remove the reliable IPs in the reference and it did not help much.

My web hosting company offers separate mysql database servers. I am not aware of any database connection restrictions.

I added mysql_close( $conn );
at the end of function protector_prepare()

no error message

if I added it at the end of the file
Notice: Undefined variable: conn in /.../protector/include/precheck.inc.php on line 75

Warning: mysql_close(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /.../protector/include/precheck.inc.php on line 75


After having commented out precheck and postcheck in mainfile.php, the site runs faster and has not had any connection problems so far. It seems that Protector is having problems with my host in some mysterious ways. I really hate to lose Protector.

Thanks for looking into it.
tl