Try dumping your $conf object just to be sure the problem isn't on that side (I really don't think so). You could also try making list context even more explicit with : my (%config,) = ($conf->getall,); # Now that's overdoing it and see if it changes anything.

If you can't get any further, try to reduce your program as much as possible until you reach the minimum conditions to reproduce the defect. And tell us on which versions of Perl you work in both cases

OK, I dumped the $conf object and found the data in there. So what was the matter?

Well, at one point, being the guy I am who tries to write robust code, I had added

my $conf = Config::General->new($cfgfile) || die "New config with $cfg
+file failed: $!";
my %config = $conf->getall  || die "config->getall with $cfgfile faile
+d: $!";
[download]

This somehow changed the context of probably the getall call, because when I changed it to

my $conf = Config::General->new($cfgfile);# || die "New config with $c
+fgfile failed: $!";
my %config = $conf->getall;#  || die "config->getall with $cfgfile fai
+led: $!";
[download]

, it worked perfectly. Thanks for taking me down a proper debugging path.

You nearly always want to use the low precedence or instead of || for this kind of statments. In your case, with precedence being what it is, you actually have : %config = ($conf->getall || die "message");. That probably doesn't look like what you meant.

With or %config = $conf->getall or die; means (%config = $conf->getall) or die; so getall is called in list context.

That would still mean that you would die on an empty config (%config = ()). And instead of using or you could just add parenthesis when needed, but I find it clearer when the low precedence operator are used for control flow, and high precedence ones are used when the return value is used.

NB: your problem is, with a few meaningless differences, one of the exemples given in Logical or and Exclusive Or to show the meaning of both operators.