when using laravel queue job processing, getting stuck

i am on 5.3.31

so it cannot be related to

https://github.com/laravel/framework/issues/15179

after 300ish jobs I get:

[2017-04-11 13:51:53] local.ERROR: Symfony\Component\Debug\Exception\FatalThrowableError: Call to a member function beginTransaction() on null in /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php:612
Stack trace:
#0 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Queue/DatabaseQueue.php(175): Illuminate\Database\Connection->beginTransaction()
#1 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Queue/Worker.php(175): Illuminate\Queue\DatabaseQueue->pop('default')
#2 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Queue/Worker.php(145): Illuminate\Queue\Worker->getNextJob(Object(Illuminate\Queue\DatabaseQueue), 'default')
#3 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Queue/Worker.php(75): Illuminate\Queue\Worker->runNextJob('database', 'default', Object(Illuminate\Queue\WorkerOptions))
#4 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Queue/Console/WorkCommand.php(100): Illuminate\Queue\Worker->daemon('database', 'default', Object(Illuminate\Queue\WorkerOptions))
#5 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Queue/Console/WorkCommand.php(83): Illuminate\Queue\Console\WorkCommand->runWorker('database', 'default')
#6 [internal function]: Illuminate\Queue\Console\WorkCommand->fire()
#7 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Container/Container.php(508): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#8 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Console/Command.php(169): Illuminate\Container\Container->call(Array)
#9 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/symfony/console/Command/Command.php(256): Illuminate\Console\Command->execute(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
#10 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Console/Command.php(155): Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command->run(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
#11 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/symfony/console/Application.php(820): Illuminate\Console\Command->run(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
#12 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/symfony/console/Application.php(187): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->doRunCommand(Object(Illuminate\Queue\Console\WorkCommand), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
#13 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/symfony/console/Application.php(118): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->doRun(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
#14 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/Console/Kernel.php(121): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->run(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
#15 /var/www/html/www.myapp.com/artisan(35): Illuminate\Foundation\Console\Kernel->handle(Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput), Object(Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput))
#16 {main}  

this error keeps repeating

the jobs are stuck, nothing advances, nothing gets moved to failed-queue neither

the only solution is that I have found is stopping the supervisor workers via cronjob every couple minutes, and starting them again. Which is far from optimal

via Toskan