First, check that you're using strict and -w. I think you're getting errors that you can't see. In that case, check your log file.

Second, the way this operates depends a lot on how you're calling it. If you're opening a pipe, it could break, and then things could fall apart.

I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that you're doing something like this:

my $file = "foo.txt";
my $data;

read($file, $data, 1024);
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Note that read operates on a file-handle, not a file name. These need to be opened:

my $file = "foo.txt";
open ($fh, $file) || die "Could not open file $file\n";
my $data;

read($fh, $data, 1024);
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If you're feeling more progressive, you might try and use IO::Handle instead of the read anachronism.