Inconsistent behavior of session variable max_allowed_packet 
(and net_buffer_length); only assignment to the global variable 
has any effect, without this being obvious to the user.
      
The patch for Bug#22891 is backported to 5.0, making the two
session variables read-only. As this is a backport to GA 
software, the error used when trying to assign to the read-
only variable is ER_UNKNOWN_ERROR. The error message is the 
same as in 5.1+.