Newsletter - blew up - how to check what happened

Running v2.8.1

I created and tested a newsletter and all appeared to go well. Yesterday I decided to use it in anger and send out a mail to our 500 members. I set it to send 3 per cycle and have 60 seconds between cycles to make sure I didn't hit any limit imposed by the hosting provider.

This morning there was this error on screen -

Quote:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception Exception with message Query error: MySQL server has gone away (SELECT n.*, c.useSMTP, c.smtpHost, c.smtpPort, c.smtpUser, c.smtpPass FROM tl_newsletter n LEFT JOIN tl_newsletter_channel c ON n.pid=c.id WHERE n.id='4' LIMIT 0,1) thrown in /home/blackroc/public_html/system/libraries/Database.php on line 599
#0 /home/blackroc/public_html/system/libraries/Database.php(546): Database_Statement->query()
#1 /home/blackroc/public_html/system/modules/newsletter/Newsletter.php(50): Database_Statement->execute('4')
#2 /home/blackroc/public_html/system/modules/backend/Backend.php(169): Newsletter->send(Object(DC_Table), 'tl_newsletter', Array)
#3 /home/blackroc/public_html/typolight/main.php(99): Backend->getBackendModule('newsletter')
#4 /home/blackroc/public_html/typolight/main.php(295): Main->run()
#5 {main}

Fatal error: Exception thrown without a stack frame in Unknown on line 0

In addition, I received the mail twice although I'm only listed once in the newlsetter recipients and another person received it 8 or 9 times. I have a feeling he is actually listed 3 or 4 times in the recipients list (the members are actually children and these would be parents email addresses.

Here's the question - where can I start looking at logs to see what happened and why it sent multiple times before blowing up ? I had a look in the Contao/Typolight system log but it doesn't record the newsletter sending.

Once I know where to look I can have a dig around.

Thanks,

z

p.s. in order to send this newsletter I had to add each of the 500 people to the newsletter manually (using edit multiple) - is there another way to mail all members that I'm maybe missing or is this the standard way ?