Thanks for the very thorough answer. Here is a typical extract from my error log: 
[Tue Sep 16 06:47:33 2008] [error] [client 65.5.128.20] (24)Too many o
+pen files: couldn't spawn child process: /var/www/vhosts/cfhs69.com/c
+gi-bin/alumni001A.pl

[download]
Based on your comment, this would imply that there are too many open files in my process, not in the system. The difficulty for me is that I do not open files directly. I have one OPEN command that is for MAIL, and this module has not been involved in the failures. I use some other PERL modules that may open files, such as Authen::Captcha, but I assume they are well behaved. And I only use this once per user. And I only have 88 users and I would be surprised if there is ever more than 2 using the site at once. Tony

In reply to Re^2: How to debug "Too Many Open Files" Error by tonyb48
in thread How to debug "Too Many Open Files" Error by tonyb48

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