Mysql vs. Mysqli crash handling

Hi folks. I've an odd issue. If I connect to a MySQL DB using ext/mysql, and for whatever reason the process dies (uncaught exception, fatal error, etc.) the connection is garbage collected and closed. If, however, I use ext/mysqli, the connection remains open forever and just eats up resources, eventually resulting in hitting the connection limit. Same app, same database, same server. Any idea why mysqli behaves that way, and how to make it clean up properly? (Yes I should of course try to avoid fatals in the first place, but when they do happen I don't want them to bring the whole server to its knees.) --Larry Garfield