This appears to be related to this ActiveState bug report against ActivePerl 809 (built on 5.8.3) and also this Perlbug ticket for 5.8.0 on Linux. It's listed as unconfirmed and medium priority by ActiveState. It's stalled waiting for example code that triggers it on perlbug.

There seems to be a pretty good explanation of what appears to be going on (although I can't vouch for its accuracy). It seems from the two separate bug reports against two different dot releases on two different platforms that the bug came from upstream of ActiveState and affects at least four dot releases of 5.8 so far. I don't see anything in change logs saying it's been fixed in newer versions, but I'll admit I may have missed it. Also, it may be lumped into one of the "many things fixed" lines somewhere in a perldelta.

I can't find an ActivePerl built from 5.8.5 so I guess it's pretty certain you're using something else. Another Perl on Windows project or built from source? On cygwin or not?

Since the bug reports are waiting for an example or more of the problem, I'd suggest replying to stmpeters on the Perl 5 RT system at the above-mentioned bug #34450 about your code. If it turns out to be a known issue fixed in a newer version, at least the bug tracker will be updated to show that and you'll be told what version was first fixed.

Of course, this being PerlMonks, someone with the skills, time, and access to look into this might be reading the thread right now. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that, though.

Might be good to test a newer version first. If a test box with 5.8.7 or 5.8.8 doesn't seem to fix it, you might consider a bug report after that.

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