I recall reading that the HP Trusted System could cause problems, so i would imagine if this were true, the getpwent() call would be effected. Once again, were this the case, i would think the HP provided perl would be pathed for this. Do you, by chance, use the Trused System Authentication ?
See also page 10 of this|search for getpwent ... someone else with a problem

---

_{can't sleep clowns will eat me}
-- MZSanford