In the DB Configuration section I checked
Use Persistent Connections [x]

And now my boards are inaccessible.
Please help.

PS. my boards are now generating the message:

UBB Message
We encountered a problem. The reason reported was
Database error only visible to forum administrators

Please click back to return to the previous page.

You need to turn it off. Probably your host does not allow it.
Edit your includes/config.inc.php file.
Search for PERSISTENT_DB_CONNECTION and set it to:

I made the change, but getting same results

I'm restarting my server .. maybe it was holding some persistent
state

What vesion are you running?

I've seen this intermittently myself and only since I upgraded to 7.5.x

Do you have SQL Error Logging enabled? We really need to see what the message is...

As for persistent connections; never enable them on a shared host or vps; it can bring your server to its knees...

yes, but how would I get to it is I can't get into the boards?

Well look in the config.inc.php file to find where the error logs are stored and you can ftp to them.

damn, I restart the server and it's still giving me the error.
Ruben, I made the change to 'PERSISTENT_DB_CONNECTION' => '',
Driv, MySql is 4.1.12
Giz, how do I get to the logs?

I just told you.
The file is named ######_mysql.log. The pound is a date number.
You also may need to use your server control panel to expire all of your connection sessions.