> Do all of the connections have to be closed before the metadata will be
> updated?

Metadata are updated on transaction commit of the transaction in which
changes were made. The issue is only in invalidating the cache.

> I was looking at this last night and it seems that over time the
> IdleRemover should eventually close all of the connections.

Yes, if you wait long enough, all connections will be eventually closed
(until the minPoolSize is reached).

> If so, then at some point in the future all of the
> metadata would be refreshed and a restart would not be necessary?

Yes, but that does not solve the issue if the connections are actively used.

Roman