The MySQL binary log client 3rd party library that we're using in the MySQL connector would attempt to open a socket with no timeout, meaning that network issues might make the connection block indefinitely. See this issue for more details.

Version 0.9.0 incorporates a fix that allows us to explicitly set the connect timeout, which defaults to 3 seconds. We should upgrade from 0.8.1 to 0.9.0 to get this new functionality. There are no other changes in 0.9.0.