You may have already tried this, but when I've run into this kind of test, I end up writing the clunky:

...
   if ( defined $args->{err} and $args->{err} ) {
      print "There is a problem : $args->{err}\n";
   }
...
[download]

Which bugged me in perl ~5.6. DWIM gone awry, me thinks.

HTH

-Ducky