I can't tell from the code snippet that you posted, are you sending the file from the browser computer to the server? or is the file being processed coming from the server computer? If you are sending a file that will increase your total time because of the time to transfer the file. Would it account for four minutes.. well that would depend on the size of the file and your transfer rate. Also, and this is just a reach, you might try setting $|=1; Perhaps it is just taking the browser some time to realize that the CGI is done.