Adding a field clears the cache_views table

We have quite a few content types with various fields defined. These have been added either manually or using the import process for content types.

However recently, adding another content type either manually or by the import process is not working and is throwing errors like this:

"Warning: MySQL server has gone away query: INSERT INTO watchdog (uid, type, message, severity, link, location, referer, hostname, timestamp) VALUES (1, 'php', 'MySQL server has gone away\nquery: UPDATE cache_views SET data = ...."

Looking in the database, the cache_views table in the database is empty.

If we insert back the records that were previously in the cache_views table before it was cleared, we can add fields again, but the same error will occur again.

There is nothing in any of the log files that helps indicate what might be going on.