If you are seeing the line received 0 length packet from server, apparent master shutdown in your mysqld.err file (when your mysql server is a slave), check the server-id of the machines which are replicating from the same server. Most likely, you will find that there are boxes which have the same server-id
thinking big
My manager made a very good one-liner today (in context of whether we should concentrate on research or on actual implementation)
Think big and implement in small steps.