I figured it out. It turns out that the script I was using it on (not the test script that I listed), connects to the MySQL database and displays data on the web page from that database. The AJAX chainselect menu is also on that page. When you select something, the javascript (AJAX) does a get to another PHP script to display the 2nd tier of the menu. It's at that point where it failed. Both my page data AND the AJAX scripts are using the same database (but different tables). So, to make a long story short .... I'm essentially connecting twice to the same database. My fix .... On the main page, I am now doing this: mysql_connect("localhost", "lechtes", "mypassword") or die(mysql_error()); mysql_select_db("lechtes_profile") or die(mysql_error()); On the AJAX script (func.php) that is processing the chainselect, I am now doing this: mysql_connect("localhost", "lechtes", "mypassword",TRUE) or die(mysql_error()); mysql_select_db("lechtes_profile") or die(mysql_error()); The 2nd connection is a "new link" to the same database (using the new link parameter). That eliminated the MySQL connection errors. Thanks everyone for this forum. I've learned a lot by looking at other posts as well. Discussions on this forum that I don't find on other forums ... nice!