diff --git a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletconntest/fakequeryservice.go b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletconntest/fakequeryservice.go
index 2d62b017433..e63cd028d05 100644
--- a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletconntest/fakequeryservice.go
+++ b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletconntest/fakequeryservice.go
@@ -702,7 +702,8 @@ func (f *FakeQueryService) StreamHealth(ctx context.Context, callback func(*quer
 
 // VStream is part of the queryservice.QueryService interface
 func (f *FakeQueryService) VStream(ctx context.Context, request *binlogdatapb.VStreamRequest, send func([]*binlogdatapb.VEvent) error) error {
-	panic("not implemented")
+	// This is called as part of vreplication unit tests, so we don't panic here.
+	return fmt.Errorf("VStream not implemented")
 }
 
 // VStreamRows is part of the QueryService interface.
diff --git a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/rpc_vreplication_test.go b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/rpc_vreplication_test.go
index 3f8bc85ac7f..06a6eb8b0a7 100644
--- a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/rpc_vreplication_test.go
+++ b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/rpc_vreplication_test.go
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@ import (
 	"testing"
 	"time"
 
+	"vitess.io/vitess/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication"
+
 	"github.com/stretchr/testify/require"
 
 	"vitess.io/vitess/go/constants/sidecar"
@@ -1783,6 +1785,14 @@ func addInvariants(dbClient *binlogplayer.MockDBClient, vreplID, sourceTabletUID
 	))
 	dbClient.AddInvariant(fmt.Sprintf(updatePickedSourceTablet, cell, sourceTabletUID, vreplID), &sqltypes.Result{})
 	dbClient.AddInvariant("update _vt.vreplication set state='Running', message='' where id=1", &sqltypes.Result{})
+	dbClient.AddInvariant(vreplication.SqlMaxAllowedPacket, sqltypes.MakeTestResult(
+		sqltypes.MakeTestFields(
+			"@@max_allowed_packet",
+			"int64",
+		),
+		"65536",
+	))
+	dbClient.AddInvariant("update _vt.vreplication set message", &sqltypes.Result{})
 }
 
 func addMaterializeSettingsTablesToSchema(ms *vtctldatapb.MaterializeSettings, tenv *testEnv, venv *vtenv.Environment) {
diff --git a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vplayer.go b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vplayer.go
index 98e36119622..96dcd9884f3 100644
--- a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vplayer.go
+++ b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vplayer.go
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ func newVPlayer(vr *vreplicator, settings binlogplayer.VRSettings, copyState map
 		settings.StopPos = pausePos
 		saveStop = false
 	}
-
+	log.Infof("Starting VReplication player id: %v, startPos: %v, stop: %v, filter: %v", vr.id, settings.StartPos, settings.StopPos, vr.source)
 	queryFunc := func(ctx context.Context, sql string) (*sqltypes.Result, error) {
 		return vr.dbClient.ExecuteWithRetry(ctx, sql)
 	}
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ func newVPlayer(vr *vreplicator, settings binlogplayer.VRSettings, copyState map
 		maxAllowedPacket := int64(vr.workflowConfig.RelayLogMaxSize)
 		// We explicitly do NOT want to batch this, we want to send it down the wire
 		// immediately so we use ExecuteFetch directly.
-		res, err := vr.dbClient.ExecuteFetch("select @@session.max_allowed_packet as max_allowed_packet", 1)
+		res, err := vr.dbClient.ExecuteFetch(SqlMaxAllowedPacket, 1)
 		if err != nil {
 			log.Errorf("Error getting max_allowed_packet, will use the relay_log_max_size value of %d bytes: %v", vr.workflowConfig.RelayLogMaxSize, err)
 		} else {
diff --git a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vreplicator.go b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vreplicator.go
index 42701288a44..76177b56b5b 100644
--- a/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vreplicator.go
+++ b/go/vt/vttablet/tabletmanager/vreplication/vreplicator.go
@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@ const (
 	json_unquote(json_extract(action, '$.type'))=%a and vrepl_id=%a and table_name=%a`
 	sqlDeletePostCopyAction = `delete from _vt.post_copy_action where vrepl_id=%a and
 	table_name=%a and id=%a`
+	SqlMaxAllowedPacket = "select @@session.max_allowed_packet as max_allowed_packet"
 )
 
 // vreplicator provides the core logic to start vreplication streams