The program is around 10,000 lines and I don't know exactly which part of it is the culprit.
Perhaps a few debug statements with time stamps in a log file would help 
sub logger{
$time=localtime();
print LOGFILE "$time : @_\n";
}
sub parseElement{
logger("I am in UR parseElement starting");
...

[download]
that way you should be able to isolate where the issue arises

In reply to Re^3: Perl suddenly pauses for key input by Utilitarian
in thread Perl suddenly pauses for key input by KHLeow

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