Ok so.... FYI, I upgraded to ActiveState build 806 of perl 5.8.0 and still the same problem. I'm guessing that it's something in the actual cookie header that is thwarting HTTP::Cookies's attempts to process the cookie. I've successfully traversed the maze all the way to Wit's End. here is the test case code and the exact output ( first on Windows Perl 5.8.0 build 806, then on RedHat Linux Perl 5.6.1 then again on Windows perl 5.6.1 build 631.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use LWP;
use HTTP::Cookies;
use Data::Dumper;

my $oper = shift;
my $user = 'user';
my $pword = 'pasword';


my $cj = HTTP::Cookies->new;
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
  $ua->cookie_jar( $cj );        # A place to hold the cookies from ET
+SS BO's
  $ua->agent("PerlWebBot/1.0 ");

  # Create a request
  my $req = HTTP::Request->new(POST => 'http://xmes.mydomain.com/pack/
+usermgr');
  $req->content_type('application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
  $req->content("operation=authenticateUser&userid=$user"."&password=$
+pword");

  # Pass request to the user agent and get a response back
  my $res = $ua->request($req);
    
  # Check the outcome of the response
  if ($res->is_success) {
      print "Got something back...\n";
  } else {
      print "Unable to contact server \n";
  }
  
print "LWP Version -> " , $LWP::VERSION , "\n";
print "Cookie Cutter -> " , $HTTP::Cookies::VERSION , "\n";
print $res->headers()->as_string() , "\n\n";
print Dumper($ua->cookie_jar() ) ;

-----------------------------------------------------
results:

D:\code>wipit.pl
Got something back...
LWP Version ->5.69
Cookie cutter -> 1.30
Connection: close
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 01:49:30 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) tomcat/1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Client-Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 05:49:36 GMT
Client-Peer: 9.61.8.22:80
Client-Response-Num: 1
Client-Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Set-Cookie: member=QkFERVJEICB8KioqKioqKip8MTA1NjY3ODU3MXxXRVNUfDE0MzI
+2fEVTVDVFRFR8VVN8ZW58OS42Ni4xNzQuMjAzfDc
0MTAzOHw=; expires=Fri, 27-Jun-2003 02:09:31 GMT; path=/; domain=btv.i
+bm.com;


$VAR1 = bless( {
                 'COOKIES' => {
                                '.btv.ibm.com' => {
                                                    '/' => {}
                                                  }
                              }
               }, 'HTTP::Cookies' );

Linux:-----------
Got something back...
LWP Version ->5.69
Cookie cutter -> 1.30
Connection: close
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 01:29:41 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) tomcat/1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Client-Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 01:29:28 GMT
Client-Peer: 9.61.8.22:80
Client-Response-Num: 1
Client-Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Set-Cookie: member=QkFERVJEICB8KioqKioqKip8MTA1NjY3NzM4MnxXRVNUfDE0ODI
+4fEVTVDVFRFR8VVN8ZW58OS42Ni4xNzUuMTk3fDc
0MTAzOHw=; expires=Fri, 27-Jun-2003 01:49:42 GMT; path=/; domain=btv.i
+bm.com;


$VAR1 = bless( {
                 'COOKIES' => {
                                '.btv.ibm.com' => {
                                                    '/' => {
                                                             'member' 
+=> [
                                                                      
+     0,
                                                                      
+     'QkFERVJEICB8KioqKioqKip8MTA1NjY3Nz
M4MnxXRVNUfDE0ODI4fEVTVDVFRFR8VVN8ZW58OS42Ni4xNzUuMTk3fDc0MTAzOHw=',
                                                                      
+     undef,
                                                                      
+     '1',
                                                                      
+     undef,
                                                                      
+     '1056678582'
                                                                      
+   ]
                                                           }
                                                  }
                              }
               }, 'HTTP::Cookies' );


Window Perl 5.6.1 ----------------------

Got something back...
LWP Version ->5.51
Cookie cutter -> 1.14
Connection: close
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 01:36:56 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) tomcat/1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Client-Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 01:43:09 GMT
Client-Peer: 9.61.8.22:80
Set-Cookie: member=QkFERVJEICB8KioqKioqKip8MTA1NjY3NzgxN3xXRVNUfDMyMjI
+3fEVTVDVFRFR8VVN8ZW58OS42Ni4xNzUuMTR8NzQ
xMDM4fA==;
 expires=Fri, 27-Jun-2003 01:56:57 GMT; path=/; domain=btv.ibm.com;


$VAR1 = bless( {
                 'COOKIES' => {
                                '.btv.ibm.com' => {
                                                    '/' => {
                                                             'member' 
+=> [
                                                                      
+     0,
                                                                      
+     'QkFERVJEICB8KioqKioqKip8MTA1NjY3NzgxN3xXRVNU
fDMyMjI3fEVTVDVFRFR8VVN8ZW58OS42Ni4xNzUuMTR8NzQxMDM4fA==',
                                                                      
+     undef,
                                                                      
+     '1',
                                                                      
+     undef,
                                                                      
+     '1056679017'
                                                                      
+   ]
                                                           }
                                                  }
                              }
               }, 'HTTP::Cookies' );
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