How I solved this problem, YMMV.
Updated perl perl-5.8.8-42.el5 to perl-5.8.8-43.el5

Got the following error when I tried to run cpan : 

Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x87bf8e4, Perl interpreter: 0
+x869f008 at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/ExtUtils/Liblist.pm line 6.

Segmentation fault

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Other scripts produced this error: 
Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0xe07c990, Perl interpreter: 0
+xe055010 at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/FindBin.pm line 101.
Segmentation fault

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Downgraded perl to perl-5.8.8-42.el5 and still got the same problem

The problem is that we installed something via CPAN that is a different version then what redhat perl uses.
I duplicated this problem by creating a CentOS image ( CentOS release 5.11 (Final) )
This installed perl-5.8.8-42.el5. I updated everything except perl.
I then installed cpan bundle ( cpan> install Bundle::CPAN )
At this point everything still works.
yum update -> installed the perl-5.8.8-43.el5
This broke cpan and other modules.

It looks like this is the main culprit:
Cwd was downgraded when perl was upgraded. 

Module id = Cwd
CPAN_USERID SMUELLER (Steffen Mueller smueller@cpan.org)
CPAN_VERSION 3.47
CPAN_FILE S/SM/SMUELLER/PathTools-3.47.tar.gz
MANPAGE Cwd - get pathname of current working directory
INST_FILE /usr/lib64/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/Cwd.pm
INST_VERSION 3.12
<code>
The fix:
<br>Download PathTools-3.47 from CPAN
<br>[http://search.cpan.org/~smueller/PathTools-3.47/]
<p>
edit MakeFile.PL
<br>In Makefile.PL in PathTools-3.47
<br>Before the following line add “use File::Spec” (It must be before 
+the line "use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;" )
<br>Like so:
<code>
use File::Spec;
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
# make
# make test
PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 /usr/bin/perl "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-e" "test_h
+arness(0, 'blib/lib', 'blib/arch')" t/*.t
t/crossplatform.........ok 1/71Can't use an undefined value as an ARRA
+Y reference at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/Test/Harness.pm line 373.
make: *** [test_dynamic] Error 255

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I went ahead and ran make install anyways.
# make install

This fixed the cpan problem with the "unreferenced scalar".
From there I ran "install Test::Harness" which resulted in this error: 

Can't call method "reftype" on unblessed reference at /usr/lib64/perl5
+/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/Safe.pm line 370.

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According to this reference the fix was to change reftype to ref.
http://www.schnallich.net/index.php/Cpan

I changed the line on 370 in Safe.pm to 

my $reftype = $item && ref $item

[download]
Downloaded Scalar-List-Utils-1.41
Installed it even though Test::Harness failed as above

This allowed me to do a cpan> install Test::Harness

After that I also updated the following through CPAN:
Test::Simple
ExtUtils::MakeMaker

This seemed to fix all the problems I was seeing.
The real solution is to get off of redhat 5 and go to 6 or 7.
Then roll my own perl and never touch the system installed perl except through yum updates as previously stated by marto.

In reply to Re^2: CPAN Error by mds
in thread CPAN Error by narendere

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