MySQL "Communications link failure Last packet sent to the server was 0 ms ago"

Issue

• The MySQL driver cannot connect to the MySQL database server

• Seeing below error message:

  ....
  Caused by: com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException: Communications link failure Last packet sent to the server was 0 ms ago.
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
        at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.Util.handleNewInstance(Util.java:406)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.SQLError.createCommunicationsException(SQLError.java:1074)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.createNewIO(ConnectionImpl.java:2103)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.<init>(ConnectionImpl.java:718)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.JDBC4Connection.<init>(JDBC4Connection.java:46)
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
        at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.Util.handleNewInstance(Util.java:406)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.getInstance(ConnectionImpl.java:302)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.NonRegisteringDriver.connect(NonRegisteringDriver.java:282)
        ...
  Caused by: java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: connect
        at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method)
        at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.doConnect(PlainSocketImpl.java:333)
        at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(PlainSocketImpl.java:195)
        at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:182)
        at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:366)
        at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:525)
        at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:475)
        at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:372)
        at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:215)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.StandardSocketFactory.connect(StandardSocketFactory.java:253)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.<init>(MysqlIO.java:280)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.createNewIO(ConnectionImpl.java:2026)
        ... 81 more