Wow! More useful tips! Yes, I actually already have shifted to the use of 2&>1 >>log.out. This may have solved the problem as well, as I don't recall the day I switched to the redirection. For the curious, the logfile is still empty, but I don't dump any of the data, because the log file clutters up too many bits. I'll certainly look into the deamon-modules.

It feels like 42...

Update: I changed the script at several points.

1. I read the docs on Package and stuff, and I use use strict; now.

2. The nohup exec command resulted in an immediate exit. I think it should be plain nohup. Anyway, I now use SIG{INT}='IGNORE', and I didn't try the nohup/() variants.

3. There is more to starting daemons than I thought. I read the Net:: Proc::daemon PODs, and there is a complete sequence needed for detaching from a terminal. Because I don't need sockets for my script, I will use Proc::daemon.

4. However, I postpone coding this for a while. For now, the script has been running for more than a day now, without problems.

Thanks to you all!