diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/hive/HiveImport.java b/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/hive/HiveImport.java
index 02596a67..07a354ba 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/hive/HiveImport.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/hive/HiveImport.java
@@ -179,6 +179,8 @@ public void importTable(String inputTableName, String outputTableName,
     }
 
     // generate the HQL statements to run.
+    // reset the connection as it might have timed out
+    connManager.discardConnection(true);
     TableDefWriter tableWriter = new TableDefWriter(options, connManager,
         inputTableName, outputTableName,
         configuration, !debugMode);
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/ConnManager.java b/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/ConnManager.java
index 32e736c5..c9e05da4 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/ConnManager.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/ConnManager.java
@@ -484,6 +484,14 @@ public abstract ResultSet readTable(String tableName, String [] columns)
    */
   public abstract Connection getConnection() throws SQLException;
 
+  /**
+   * discard the database connection.
+   */
+  public void discardConnection(boolean doClose) {
+    throw new UnsupportedOperationException("No discard connection support "
+      + "for this database");
+  }
+
   /**
    * @return a string identifying the driver class to load for this
    * JDBC connection type.
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/GenericJdbcManager.java b/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/GenericJdbcManager.java
index 233e546f..2113a5f5 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/GenericJdbcManager.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/sqoop/manager/GenericJdbcManager.java
@@ -65,9 +65,12 @@ protected boolean hasOpenConnection() {
    * connection first.
    * @param doClose if true, try to close the connection before forgetting it.
    */
-  protected void discardConnection(boolean doClose) throws SQLException {
+  public void discardConnection(boolean doClose) {
     if (doClose && hasOpenConnection()) {
-      this.connection.close();
+      try {
+        this.connection.close();
+      } catch(SQLException sqe) {
+      }
     }
 
     this.connection = null;